Date: 2026-09-15 Time: 1:30 PM EDT Attendees: Michael Houck (Rye Valley), Steve O’Brien (Mantis VC)
Summary
Monthly 1:1 between Michael and Steve O’Brien (Mantis VC). Steve announced Mantis closed a fundraise over $100M and that he is personally transitioning to a new family office consulting company (launching January 2027, full-time). He will move Mantis itself to a consultancy client relationship at that point. A new Mantis POC named Anjali (Janali in transcript; former McKinsey) will take over the Sam Sales relationship and is already aligned against Sam Sales. Steve and Michael explored an in-person LA meeting to introduce Anjali and discuss renewal. Steve shared details on his new consulting business and his British Columbia engineering team.
This was a pivotal call: Steve offboarding changes the entire Mantis account structure for Megaphone.
Decisions
- Steve offboarding from Mantis day-to-day on January 1, 2027; starting a family office consulting business.
- Mantis transitions to a consultancy client relationship with Steve’s new venture.
- Anjali (new Mantis POC, former McKinsey) to be looped in immediately by Steve; Michael to meet her in LA (possibly with Blake).
- Steve will likely return as a personal Megaphone client once his own consulting business is building its brand.
- Both to potentially meet in Dallas around September 26 weekend.
Action Items
- Steve: loop Anjali into Alex/Sam Sales conversation today
- Steve: send consultancy materials and fintech business overview to Michael this afternoon
- Michael and Steve: coordinate Dallas meetup (weekend of ~Sep 26)
- Michael: schedule three-way call or LA in-person meeting with Steve and Anjali
Notable Excerpts
On the fundraise and transition (Steve):
“We’re over $100 million. I’m going to be taking time off in March. And I’ve actually started working on a new consulting business for family offices where I kind of replicated the Palantir technology. I’m going to go full-time on that in January.”
On the new consulting model:
“Replicating Palantir-style technology and data architecture for family offices. First external client in Fort Lauderdale: full build including custom signaling architecture, centralized database, portfolio pipeline management, and network access for real estate.”
On Anjali’s alignment (Michael paraphrasing Steve):
“Anjali is already on board with not liking Sam Sales. So we’ll make sure she’s aligned before renewal terms are set.”
On Steve returning as client:
“Steve likely to come back as a client once he’s building his own thing - probably in January.”
Full transcript in Granola. Reference ID: 8c0fe893-45ed-46f6-9712-da00fad66b49