Meridian AI Emerges from Stealth with $17M to Reinvent Financial Modeling—and It’s Not Another Excel Plugin

In the ever-evolving world of fintech, one truth remains stubbornly constant: financial modeling still lives and dies in spreadsheets. But what if you could compress hours of analyst work into just 10 minutes—without sacrificing accuracy, auditability, or sanity? That’s the bold promise of Meridian, a stealthy new AI startup that just burst onto the scene with $17 million in seed funding and a valuation of $100 million.

Announced this Wednesday, the funding round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and The General Partnership, with notable participation from QED Investors, FPV Ventures, and Litquidity Ventures. Meridian is already making waves, reportedly closing $5 million in contracts in December alone, with early adopters including teams at Decagon and OffDeal.

But Meridian isn’t just another Excel plugin or AI wrapper. Its founders—led by CEO and co-founder John Ling—are taking a radically different approach. Instead of embedding AI into Excel (a crowded battlefield already staked out by startups like Shortcut AI), Meridian has built a standalone IDE-like workspace reminiscent of Cursor. Think of it as a supercharged, AI-native financial modeling environment where data sources, models, and assumptions live in harmony—no more copy-paste nightmares or version control meltdowns.

Ling, who brings experience from AI powerhouses like Scale AI and Anthropic, as well as financial heavyweights like Goldman Sachs, knows the pain points firsthand. “Our goal is to make financial modeling and spreadsheets way more predictable and auditable,” he told TechCrunch. “How can you take a process that traditionally might have taken several hours and condense it down into like 10 minutes?”

That’s easier said than done. Financial modeling is a discipline where precision is paramount. As Ling explains, if you ask 10 software engineers at Google to build the same feature, you’ll likely get 10 different implementations—and that’s fine. But if you ask 10 banking analysts at Goldman Sachs to value the same company, you’ll get 10 nearly identical models. That consistency is the gold standard—and it’s exactly what Meridian is trying to replicate with AI.

The challenge? AI models are inherently non-deterministic. They can hallucinate, drift, or produce slightly different outputs each time. For financial analysts who need rock-solid, repeatable results, that’s a dealbreaker. Meridian’s solution is a hybrid approach: blending agentic AI with traditional tooling to create outputs that are both flexible and auditable. The goal is to “remove the doubt layer” from the LLM process, giving users full visibility into how logic flows and where assumptions originate.

This isn’t just about speed—it’s about trust. In the high-stakes world of finance, a single miscalculation can cost millions. Meridian’s platform is designed to minimize hallucinations and maximize transparency, making it a compelling option for enterprises wary of the unpredictability that has plagued many AI deployments.

Based in New York, Meridian’s team is a unique blend of AI and finance veterans. This cross-pollination of expertise is evident in the product’s design: it’s not just technically sophisticated, but also deeply attuned to the workflows and pain points of financial professionals.

The timing couldn’t be better. The market for AI-powered financial tools is exploding, driven by the high cost of human-led analysis and the increasing complexity of financial data. Meridian’s IDE-based approach could be a game-changer, offering a unified workspace that integrates data sources, models, and documentation—all while maintaining the rigor and auditability that finance demands.

Of course, the road ahead won’t be easy. Meridian faces stiff competition from both established players and a new wave of AI startups. But with $17 million in fresh capital, a world-class team, and a product that addresses a real, painful problem, Meridian is well-positioned to make its mark.

As financial modeling enters the AI era, one thing is clear: the days of endless spreadsheet wrangling may finally be numbered. And if Meridian has its way, the future of finance will be faster, smarter, and a whole lot more predictable.

Tags: AI, fintech, financial modeling, spreadsheets, Excel, Meridian AI, Andreessen Horowitz, The General Partnership, QED Investors, FPV Ventures, Litquidity Ventures, John Ling, Cursor, Shortcut AI, Scale AI, Anthropic, Goldman Sachs, Decagon, OffDeal, IDE, agentic AI, enterprise AI, auditability, deterministic AI, LLM, hallucinations, financial analysis, startup funding, New York tech

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