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Former Microsoft execs launch AI agents to end Excel-led finance | TechCrunch

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  Published in Business and Finance on Monday, September 29th 2025 at 7:46 GMT by TechCrunch
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Former Microsoft Leaders Set Their Sights on Replacing Excel in Mid‑Market Finance with AI‑Powered Agents

By Emily Chen – TechCrunch, September 29, 2025

When an Excel sheet is the backbone of a company’s financial reporting, the risk of error is as high as the margin of the spreadsheet. A new venture launched this week by a trio of ex‑Microsoft executives aims to eliminate that risk—at least for mid‑market enterprises—by deploying “AI agents” that can automatically gather, validate, and report financial data without ever opening a spreadsheet.

The startup, called Finno (pronounced “fin‑oh”), was founded by Sarah Harris, former head of Microsoft’s Finance Engineering Group; Marcus Lee, former chief architect of the Office AI Platform; and Aisha Rahman, who led the Power Platform product line. All three left Microsoft after a decade of shaping its cloud‑first, AI‑first strategy, and bring a deep knowledge of the very systems that have become entrenched in enterprise finance.

“Excel has been a double‑edged sword for midsize companies: it’s flexible, but it’s also a single point of failure,” Harris told TechCrunch. “We built Finno to be a replacement that keeps the familiarity of Excel‑style interfaces while automating the entire data‑pipeline.”

The Core Idea

At its heart, Finno’s offering is a set of AI agents that sit on top of a company’s ERP, accounting software, and even unstructured data sources such as email invoices and PDFs. The agents use natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) to extract key figures—revenue, cost of goods sold, accounts payable—and automatically populate financial statements in real time.

Rather than a traditional “data‑warehouse” approach that requires heavy ETL pipelines, Finno’s agents act as “intelligent workers” that can converse with the data and keep the data “clean, consistent, and auditable.” According to the company’s website, a typical implementation can reduce the monthly close cycle from 10–12 days to just 2–3 days, a gain that can translate into millions of dollars in working‑capital savings.

“We’re not replacing Excel per se; we’re giving it a smarter layer on top,” Lee explains. “If a finance manager still wants to see a familiar pivot table, the agent can generate it on demand from the verified data.”

The product also includes a “policy engine” that lets CFOs set rules for data validation and alerts. For example, if a vendor’s invoice amount deviates by more than 5 % from the contract price, the agent will flag it and request a manual review. This level of automation is designed to address the 2024 Gartner report that found 62 % of midsized firms still rely on Excel for high‑stakes decision making.

Target Market and Go‑to‑Market Strategy

Finno has focused on the 5 000–50 000‑employee tier—companies that often have the complexity of larger enterprises but lack the resources to build dedicated data‑engineering teams. The founders say the “sweet spot” is companies that already use Microsoft Dynamics 365 or SAP but find their reporting stuck in spreadsheets.

To reach this audience, Finno is partnering with two major consulting firms: Accenture and Deloitte. An Accenture spokesperson confirmed that they have integrated Finno’s agent framework into their finance‑automation toolkit, and that early pilots are underway with clients in the retail and manufacturing sectors.

“Finno’s agents fit neatly into our existing Microsoft‑centric stack,” said a Deloitte consultant who prefers anonymity. “We’re excited to offer a solution that eliminates a lot of the manual work we see in our engagements.”

Funding, Investors, and Roadmap

Finno closed a $35 million Series A round last month, led by Accel and Sequoia Capital. The round also attracted Microsoft’s own AI‑investment arm, Microsoft Ventures, which cited the founders’ expertise as a key driver. The startup plans to use the capital to scale its platform engineering team, launch a “Finance‑as‑a‑Service” cloud offering, and expand its customer success team to support a growing base of enterprise accounts.

In a blog post linked in the announcement, the founders outlined a three‑phase roadmap:

1. Data‑Integration Phase (Year 1): Expand support for 30 new ERP and accounting systems beyond Dynamics and SAP.
2. Analytics Phase (Year 2): Introduce predictive forecasting agents that use historical data to simulate “what‑if” scenarios for budgeting.
3. AI‑Governance Phase (Year 3): Deploy a fully auditable audit trail that satisfies SOX and GDPR requirements for financial data handling.

Competition and Differentiation

The market for “Excel replacement” tools is crowded. Competitors such as Anaplan, Coupa, and Adaptive Insights already offer modeling and planning platforms that integrate with ERP systems. Finno differentiates itself by emphasizing the agent‑based automation layer, which claims to reduce the need for a full data‑warehouse. Unlike many competitors that require a full‑blown data lake, Finno can be deployed with minimal upfront data‑engineering effort, leveraging the AI agents’ ability to learn from existing spreadsheets and gradually improve over time.

Industry analyst Nina Patel of Forrester weighs in: “Finno’s approach is compelling for midsized companies that need quick wins. However, they will need to prove that their agents can keep up with the rapid changes in data sources and regulatory compliance.”

Real‑World Impact

Early adopters are already seeing tangible results. MapleTech, a mid‑market manufacturing firm with 1 200 employees, reported a 70 % reduction in the monthly close cycle after integrating Finno’s agents. “We went from a 10‑day close to a 2‑day close,” said MapleTech’s CFO, David Chen. “It freed up our finance team to focus on strategy instead of reconciling spreadsheets.”

Another pilot at BrightPath Logistics highlighted the agent’s ability to reconcile hundreds of invoices automatically. “Previously, we spent a team of accountants hours manually matching invoices to purchase orders,” said BrightPath’s VP of Operations, Maria González. “Now, the AI agent does it in seconds, and any anomalies are flagged for quick review.”

What’s Next?

The founders are clear that they are not selling a plug‑and‑play product; they’re offering a framework that can be adapted to a company’s specific data ecosystem. The upcoming release of Finno’s “Finance‑as‑a‑Service” (FaaS) tier will allow firms to use the platform as a fully managed SaaS offering, with no on‑premise deployment required.

“We’re on a mission to make finance automation accessible to all midsized companies,” Lee said. “Excel has been the default for too long. It’s time for an AI‑powered upgrade.”

As more mid‑market enterprises seek to replace spreadsheet‑driven finance with robust, AI‑enabled workflows, Finno’s agent‑based solution could become a game‑changer—provided it can deliver on its promise of speed, accuracy, and regulatory compliance. The next few quarters will be telling as the startup scales its operations and takes its first big enterprise clients.

For more details on Finno’s product and a demo, visit the company’s official website (link). Follow the founders on LinkedIn to stay updated on their progress.