AI challenges financial model innovation... Mureda secures $17 million investment
Early-stage AI startup Meridian raised $17 million in seed funding (approximately 24.5 billion KRW), officially challenging the innovation of financial modeling. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and The General Partnership, valuing Meridian at $100 million (about 144 billion KRW) after this financing.
Meridian has officially registered as Longitude Labs Inc., with a core focus on integrating “Intelligent Agent AI” to automate one of the most complex and demanding tasks in the financial industry—financial modeling. For decades, the Excel-centric approach to financial modeling has imposed significant limitations on accuracy, verifiability, and consistency when integrating AI. To overcome these constraints, Meridian has built an independent development environment and proposed a new approach centered on AI to replace traditional Excel methods.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Meridian co-founder and CEO John Ling emphasized, “Financial institutions must strictly comply with regulations and require models that are precise, structured, and traceable.” He further pointed out, “Large language models are inherently probabilistic and nondeterministic, meaning that even with the same input, the results can differ each time, making them unsuitable for the financial industry.”
He illustrated the difference between engineers and analysts by saying, “If 10 Google software engineers implement the same function, they will produce 10 completely different codes; but if 10 Goldman Sachs financial analysts build valuation models for the same company, the reports will be similar in format.” He explained that this high level of consistency and predictability is a key standard in financial modeling.
Meridian’s platform can seamlessly connect to various external data sources and provide clear visibility throughout the workflow. This helps minimize the “hallucination” problem often associated with AI, ensuring that results are reproducible and standardized. Additionally, all assumptions and calculations are transparent and visible, enabling financial institutions to easily meet regulatory requirements and internal audit standards.
CEO John Ling stated, “Meridian’s ultimate goal is to eliminate the ‘uncertainty’ that can arise in AI processes, making it a precise decision-support tool.” In fact, Meridian signed contracts worth $5 million (about 7.2 billion KRW) last December with early clients such as Decagon AI and OffDeal, demonstrating its commercial potential.
Based on this round of funding, Meridian plans to accelerate technology development and focus on expanding its market among large enterprise clients that demand compliance, speed, and accuracy simultaneously. Whether it can go beyond a simple combination of AI and traditional finance to become a new platform that meets both automation and auditability is worth watching.