AI moves into Excel modeling
Crunched is embedding advanced AI into Excel to automate LBO and underwriting workflows, letting analysts generate models faster and focus on scenario analysis. Social threads also show traders and analysts sharing DCF/LBO prompt templates and model‑automation tricks that are reshaping technical interview expectations (aicretools.com) (x.com).
Crunched says it runs on Anthropic’s Claude (Opus and Sonnet variants) and, in a customer case study published by Anthropic, reported up to 10x speed improvements and more than 50% time savings on complex Excel modeling for a $100M real‑estate transaction. (claude.com) (claude.com) AICRETools’ product page notes Crunched can complete PE recruiting tests that typically take one-plus hours in under 10 minutes, citing automated extraction and fully‑linked model generation as the mechanism. (aicretools.com) (aicretools.com) Crunched is distributed as an Excel add‑in on Microsoft’s Marketplace and Office Store and explicitly supports Excel 2016 or later on Mac and Windows as well as Excel on the web. (marketplace.microsoft.com) (marketplace.microsoft.com) The company raised NOK 66 million (about USD 6 million) in seed funding led by First Round Capital with participation from Y Combinator, 20VC, Liquid 2 Ventures and SV Angel to expand its U.S. and European presence. (mainsights.io) (mainsights.io) Y Combinator’s company profile frames Crunched as an “Excel AI analyst for power users” aimed at consulting, investment banking and private equity workflows, emphasizing end‑to‑end error checking, template linking and auditability. (ycombinator.com) (ycombinator.com) Viral threads collected and reposted by growth marketer Chris Laub show finance power users exchanging Claude “mega‑prompts” and prompt packs that have circulated widely across X/Twitter and community forums. (threadreaderapp.com) (threadreaderapp.com) Public prompt repositories and AI‑tools guides publish explicit DCF and LBO prompt templates—stepwise prompts for forecasting free cash flow, sensitivity tables and terminal value calculations—that are appearing alongside model‑automation walkthroughs. (docsbot.ai) (docsbot.ai) Comparative reviews highlight Crunched’s specialization in autonomous, fully‑linked model construction inside Excel, while noting Microsoft’s Excel Copilot emphasizes in‑context analytics and Python integration rather than end‑to‑end model building. (lumetric.ai) (lumetric.ai)
