COMPARE
Buyers ask how we differ from a deal-flow platform, an AI research tool or a firm that builds for finance teams. This page answers from each company's own public material, dated and linked. Lensential wrote it.
SIX KINDS OF ALTERNATIVE
DEAL-FLOW AND FUND PLATFORMS
Software that runs the process: intake, pipeline, members, portfolio records and fund administration. Both now use AI.
Where we fit: on top of them. Funnel triage reads the export you already keep there.
AI RESEARCH PLATFORMS FOR FINANCE
Software your team operates, with engineers who build custom agents, sold to banks, private equity and asset managers.
Where we fit: we deliver the checked, signed report ourselves, to firms that do not want to run a platform.
AUTOMATED REPORT TOOLS
Several tools generate a report on a deck in minutes and grade its claims by color or label, for a price per report.
Where we fit: we check claims against records the company does not control, and a principal signs the result before an analyst presents it.
PEOPLE-BASED SPECIALISTS
They have what we do not: court, credit and sanctions records, and engineers who audit a codebase from the inside.
Where we fit: we do not run background checks of the kind licensed screening firms run. We check credentials against primary records and send the rest to them.
FINANCE ADVISORY AND CFO-SERVICES FIRMS
Firms that staff the close, build reporting and support PE-backed companies, now adding AI to that work.
Where we fit: we build agents that run inside your own systems, and your controller approves what they produce.
DEVELOPMENT SHOPS, LOCAL AND OFFSHORE
Engineers who build what you specify, by the project or by the month.
Where we fit: we write the specification with your finance team first, and we can run what we build.
FIVE WAYS TO CHECK A DEAL
We compare kinds of alternative, not companies, on how each usually works, as we understand it. A given provider may work differently.
| What | Lensential | Your own associate or deal team | A chat assistant | An automated report tool | A diligence firm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delivery time | A screen within 24 hours; the full report within ten business days of data-room access, fifteen for a buyout once your call transcripts are in | As bandwidth allows | Minutes | Minutes | Weeks |
| How you pay | A fixed fee per paper, or a retainer, agreed before work begins | A salary | A subscription | A price per report | A fee per engagement |
| What you get | A graded screen, the diligence papers and the report, each signed by a principal | A memo in your house style | An answer, unlabeled | A report generated in minutes | A report |
| Evidence and corrections | Six labels, each finding tested against the company's best answer, and a corrections register in every report | As your process requires | Citations vary by product; claims are not graded | Claims graded by color or label | Sources cited; method varies |
| Consistency from deal to deal | One standard on every deal | Varies with the person | Varies with the prompt | High | Varies by engagement |
| Who signs the work | A principal | Your associate | No one | No one | The firm |
| Where it is stronger | Knows your thesis and your partners | Instant, and costs little | Instant, and the same every time | Specialist depth, and a signature others rely on |
On every deal you get our signature as a firm, a stated delivery time and a fixed fee.
DEAL-FLOW AND FUND PLATFORMS
Dealum serves angel groups, accelerators and investors.17 Decile Hub serves venture firms, many of them emerging managers.19
| What | Lensential | Dealum | Decile Hub |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A research and build firm that delivers reports, run on its own agents. | Deal management software for angel groups, accelerators and investors.17 | Software to run a venture firm: CRM, data rooms, fund accounting, LP reporting and AI agents.6 13 |
| Pipeline and intake | Not offered as a platform. Funnel triage reads the export from your platform. | Deal rooms with an application funnel, screening steps and actions.4 | Pipelines and stages, with decks emailed straight in.6 8 |
| AI on new applications | Funnel triage sorts a whole cycle against your thesis, with a written reason for every company that fails. | Extracts application data from decks, and scores each application against weighted criteria, rating each criterion from 0 to 100.1 2 | Scores each deck against the fund's thesis on a one to five star scale.6 |
| Reports on a company | The Screen, the Profile, the diligence report and the memo. Each claim is labeled, and each diligence finding is marked adverse or favorable, and how firm. | No generated diligence report or memo found in public material. | An AI deal-memo agent with citations, and a counterfactual agent that argues against the deal.6 7 |
| People reviewing the work | Our analysts run the agents, a principal signs the report, and we present it. | No public evidence found. | Decile Group, which makes Decile Hub, has a review team that gives feedback on deal terms and market standards within 48 hours.7 |
| Claims checked against records the company does not control | Registries, licenses, web archives, file metadata and primary records. | No public evidence found. | No public evidence found. |
| SAFE, note and exit math for your own stake | The exit model and the Note Brief, through Series C, graded against what buyers paid. | Records SAFEs and notes with cap and discount, and interest on notes, converts them to equity, and reports value, multiple and IRR. No forward conversion or dilution modeling found in public material.15 16 | Tracks valuations and fund returns in its accounting. No forward SAFE, dilution or exit modeling found in public material.8 |
| Portfolio monitoring | Not a product. We can build an investor-update agent inside your firm. | AI summaries of investor updates, with key metrics and color-coded risk flags.3 | Portfolio companies, valuations, fund metrics such as TVPI and IRR, LP reporting, and automated updates from portfolio companies.8 13 |
| Analytics and access | Excel workbooks you can rerun. | Funnel and member statistics by period, and a REST API and a read-only MCP server as paid add-ons.4 5 | A public REST API and an MCP server.8 |
| Where they are stronger | Running an angel group or an accelerator day to day, with public pricing.18 | Running a fund end to end in one system, from CRM and data rooms to fund accounting and an LP portal.13 |
AI RESEARCH PLATFORMS FOR FINANCE
Model ML pairs a finance platform with engineers who build and run custom agents for its clients.9 It works most like we do, but for larger institutions.
| What | Lensential | Model ML |
|---|---|---|
| How you buy | Order a report, or commission a build. | A platform, sold through demos and scoped engagements; pricing is not published.10 |
| Who does the work | Our analysts run the agents, a principal signs the report, and we present it. | Your team uses the software; forward-deployed engineers build custom agents and run them every day.9 |
| Buyers named on its site | Venture funds, angel networks, private equity, startup programs, founders and finance teams. | Investment banking, private equity and credit, asset and wealth management, and consulting; its contact form also lists venture capital.9 10 |
| Outputs | PDF, live Excel, Word and PowerPoint, in your house style. | PowerPoint, Word, Excel and live HTML dashboards.10 |
| Founder, cap table and SAFE checks | Founder credentials against primary records, investors in the round, and SAFE and note conversion. | No public evidence found. |
| Licensed market data | Public sources and the documents you send. Figures from databases are labeled as estimates. | Integrations with S&P Capital IQ, FactSet, PitchBook and other data providers.12 |
| Size | Our principals and a bench of analysts and engineers from our network and partner firms. | Almost 200 people and nine offices as of October 5, 2026; it opened a Dubai office on October 22, 2026.11 14 |
| Where they are stronger | Scale, licensed data, and a platform your own team can run every day. |
SOURCES
Dealum, Decile Hub and Model ML are trademarks of their owners. They are not affiliated with Lensential and have not reviewed this page.