Meridian Secures $17M Seed Funding to Revolutionize Financial Modeling with AI-Powered Agentic Spreadsheet Platform

Meridian, a stealth-mode startup, has officially launched with $17 million in seed funding at a $100 million post-money valuation, positioning itself as a next-generation solution for AI-driven financial modeling. The company announced the funding round on Wednesday, led by Andreessen Horowitz and the General Partnership, with additional participation from QED Investors, FPV Ventures, and Litquidity Ventures.

Unlike traditional Excel-based AI agents that integrate directly into spreadsheet applications, Meridian has developed a standalone IDE-based workspace that functions similarly to development environments like Cursor. This architectural approach enables seamless integration of multiple data sources and external references, eliminating friction points common in conventional spreadsheet workflows.

"Our objective is to make financial modeling and spreadsheet operations significantly more predictable and auditable," explained John Ling, CEO and co-founder. "We're compressing processes that traditionally required several hours into approximately 10 minutes."

The New York-based company has assembled a team combining expertise from leading AI organizations such as Scale AI and Anthropic, alongside financial sector veterans from institutions like Goldman Sachs. This hybrid expertise addresses one of the platform's core challenges: reconciling the non-deterministic nature of large language models with the strict precision requirements of financial analysis.

Ling illustrated this challenge: "If you task ten software engineers at Google with implementing a new feature, you'll receive ten distinct implementations—and that's acceptable. However, if you ask ten banking analysts at Goldman Sachs to create valuation models for the same company, you'll receive ten nearly identical workbooks."

To meet these stringent requirements, Meridian has engineered its platform to deliver deterministic and auditable outputs while maintaining the flexibility inherent to LLM-based tools. The solution combines agentic AI capabilities with conventional tooling methodologies, significantly reducing hallucinations that typically impede enterprise AI deployments.

"Our goal is to eliminate the uncertainty layer from the LLM process," Ling stated. "Users can trace exactly how the logic flows, and all assumptions integrated into the model are fully transparent and traceable."

The company has already demonstrated strong market traction, currently collaborating with teams at Decagon and OffDeal, and securing $5 million in contracts in December alone.

Meridian enters a competitive landscape where AI-powered spreadsheet solutions have become increasingly popular targets for startups, driven by the high costs associated with traditional human-led financial analysis. However, its IDE-centric architecture and emphasis on auditability distinguish it from competitors that embed agents directly into existing spreadsheet platforms.

Sources:
Meridian Official Website