Meridian Secures $17 Million Funding, Excel AI Agent [2026]

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Meridian’s $17 Million Investment: 3 Key Takeaways

  • $17 million raised with participation from prominent VCs like a16z
  • AI agent-based financial modeling tool that works within Excel
  • ‘Agentic Spreadsheet’ strategy targeting Wall Street IB/PE professionals

Not Replacing Excel, But Building on Top of It

Meridian isn’t telling you to ditch Excel. Instead, it’s a tool that embeds an AI agent within Excel to automatically create financial models.[TechCrunch] Co-founders John Ling (CEO), George Fang (CTO), and Zach Kirshner (COO) are coming out of stealth mode with the announcement of their $17 million funding round.

AI handles tasks like DCF model generation, financial statement analysis, and ratio calculations. It directly pulls SEC EDGAR data and handles PDFs and CSVs within a unified workspace.[Meridian] Formula tracing is available, allowing you to see how any cell was calculated with a single click.

Why a16z Took Notice

The investment included participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), QED Investors, Qatar Investment Authority, General Partners, and Soma Capital.[Meridian] As anyone in finance knows, Excel is still the lingua franca of Wall Street. No matter how good a SaaS product is, it’s hard to abandon Excel.

Meridian has accurately targeted this point. It has adopted an IDE approach, preserving the existing Excel interface while adding AI automation. It supports version control, revision history tracking, and analysis of the impact of assumption changes on valuation. It’s precisely targeting the most time-consuming aspects of the job.

The Trend of the Agentic Spreadsheet Market

In 2026, ‘Agentic AI’ is a hot topic in the industry. Following coding, search, and customer service, it has now arrived in the spreadsheet domain. OffDeal, an AI-native investment bank, called Meridian “the only product that can be trusted in a real deal environment.”[Meridian]

They are also trying to lower the barriers to enterprise adoption by having a SOC 2 compliant infrastructure and role-based access management. It supports both Windows and macOS. Security and auditing are critical in the financial sector, so these features are essential for actual adoption.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: Is Meridian a tool that replaces Excel?

A: No. Meridian doesn’t replace Excel but is an AI layer that operates on top of it. While maintaining the existing Excel interface, the AI agent automates tasks such as financial model generation, data collection, and formula verification. It can be used on both Windows and macOS.

Q: Which investors participated?

A: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), QED Investors, Qatar Investment Authority, General Partners, and Soma Capital participated. The total investment amount is $17 million. The participation of VCs strong in the fintech sector, such as a16z and QED, is noteworthy.

Q: Who are Meridian’s main target users?

A: The primary target is professionals who perform complex financial modeling tasks, such as investment banks, private equity funds, and corporate finance teams. AI automates functions necessary for practical work, such as DCF models, financial statement analysis, and the use of SEC filing data. It is already being used in real transactions by AI-native investment banks.

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