New York Startup Cuts Financial Analysis from Hours to Minutes

Financial analysts spend countless hours building complex spreadsheets, but a new tool could give them most of that time back.

Meridian, a New York-based startup, emerged this week with $17 million in funding to revolutionize financial modeling. The company built software that combines artificial intelligence with traditional spreadsheet tools, cutting analysis time from several hours down to about 10 minutes.

The funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz, values the young company at $100 million. In December alone, Meridian signed $5 million worth of contracts with early clients.

What makes Meridian different is how it solves a problem that has frustrated financial professionals for years. Traditional spreadsheets require manual data entry and calculations that eat up valuable time. Earlier AI tools tried to fix this but often produced inconsistent results that financial teams couldn't trust.

"Our goal is to make financial modeling and spreadsheets way more predictable and auditable," says CEO John Ling. The company designed its platform to work like a standalone workspace rather than plugging into Excel, giving it more power to pull in data from multiple sources seamlessly.

The Ripple Effect

The impact goes beyond just saving time. Financial analysts can now focus on strategy and insight instead of repetitive spreadsheet work. Companies get faster, more reliable analysis for crucial business decisions.

Meridian's team combined expertise from AI companies like Anthropic with financial veterans from Goldman Sachs. This mix helped them tackle the biggest challenge: making AI outputs consistent enough for finance professionals who need identical results every time.

The company already works with teams at firms like Decagon and OffDeal. By reducing the "doubt layer" around AI-generated work, Meridian shows how technology can enhance professional expertise rather than replace it.

When tools that once required hours of focused work become 10-minute tasks, professionals everywhere win back time for the work that truly matters.