Despite 750 million people using spreadsheets daily, only 20% understand how to perform basic operations like VLOOKUP or pivot table creation. This gap leaves powerful insights locked away from most users. Sourcetable solves this problem by introducing natural language-powered spreadsheets, allowing users to direct complex operations without coding knowledge.
Today, San Francisco-based AI startup Sourcetable has launched the world’s first autonomous spreadsheet powered by AI, designed to automate common analytical workflows. The company has also raised a $4.3 million seed funding round, led by Bee Partners, with participation from notable tech leaders, including Julien Chaumond (Hugging Face co-founder), Preston-Werner Ventures (GitHub co-founder), Roger Bamford (Distinguished Architect at MongoDB), and James Beshara (Magic Mind co-founder).
The funding will be used to accelerate product development and expand its AI-powered solutions into hospitals and broader industrial applications. With AI handling the analytical heavy lifting, Sourcetable aims to democratise data analysis and enhance productivity, enabling users of all skill levels to perform complex spreadsheet tasks efficiently.
AI-powered spreadsheets accessible to everyone
Sourcetable was founded by Eoin McMillan and Andrew Grosser, both based in San Francisco. With extensive backgrounds in machine learning and AI from previous startups, the founders recognised the limitations of traditional spreadsheets and sought to bridge the gap by integrating AI. Their technical expertise allowed Sourcetable to leapfrog competitors like Excel and Google Sheets, which have yet to introduce fully autonomous spreadsheet capabilities.
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Initially, Sourcetable catered to technical users such as data scientists, Python programmers, and SQL analysts. However, the real breakthrough came when the team shifted its focus to making spreadsheets accessible to everyday users. By embedding AI to automate complex but common workflows, Sourcetable drastically reduced friction and increased engagement. This pivot unlocked the platform’s full potential to democratise data analysis.
A game changer: AI-powered autopilot mode
Sourcetable’s core innovation lies in its “self-driving” autopilot mode that performs advanced spreadsheet tasks through voice and natural language commands. Users can simply tell the spreadsheet what they want via keyboard or hands-free voice control and Sourcetable’s AI executes complex multi-step operations automatically.
The platform completes a range of sophisticated tasks, including creating and editing financial models , building pivot tables, even with messy data, cleaning and enriching datasets , generating charts and graphs, formatting and analysing entire workbooks , and integrating multiple data sources.
Sourcetable’s AI goes beyond Google Sheets and Excel by interpreting context without manual range selection and seeking human clarification when necessary, reducing friction in complex workflows.
What sets Sourcetable apart is its flexible model-agnostic approach. While Microsoft and Google rely on proprietary AI models, Sourcetable dynamically selects the best model for each task. The platform seamlessly integrates with models from industry leaders. This adaptability ensures that the company consistently leverages the latest AI innovations, keeping its platform at the cutting edge of spreadsheet automation.
What’s next: Evolving beyond spreadsheets
Sourcetable’s ambitions extend far beyond spreadsheets. The company is evolving into a full-scale platform for AI agents and applications, enabling seamless agent-to-agent interactions and serving as a data operating system for the web.
With read/write capabilities to third-party systems on the horizon, Sourcetable isn’t just reinventing spreadsheets—it’s redefining how businesses interact with data, paving the way for a future where AI seamlessly integrates into all aspects of enterprise operations.
“AI is the biggest platform shift since the browser, with a bigger opportunity for disruption. Sourcetable is building the AI spreadsheet for the next billion users, be they human or AI,” said Eoin McMillan, CEO & Co-founder of Sourcetable. “As AI makes analysis easier, everybody will become an analyst. Sourcetable’s AI automation ushers in a new era of productivity and human cognition.”
Beyond its immediate impact on productivity tools like spreadsheets, Sourcetable represents a broader shift toward redefining knowledge work itself. By enabling seamless collaboration between humans and AI agents through intuitive interfaces like natural language commands, tools like Sourcetable could fundamentally change how organizations approach problem-solving and decision-making in an increasingly data-driven world.
Investors’ views
“For decades, we’ve been stuck in a world with those who know Excel, and those who don’t. Not anymore. Today’s AI supercycle demands that all of our interfaces transform to become useful for both humans and machines, and they all demand a new data architecture. Eoin, Andrew and the Sourcetable team have done it. Now anyone, human or agent, can benefit from accurate, reliable data analysis, underpinned by the all important spreadsheet,” said Michael Berolzheimer, Managing Partner, Bee Partners.
“Spreadsheet apps are an Internet-native product I use every day in both my work and personal life, and I’ve for a long time wished that one could multiply their productivity with AI. So when I got the opportunity to invest in such a product in Sourcetable I was excited to do it,” added Julien Chaumond, CTO/Co-founder, Hugging Face.
“AI is the biggest collaboration opportunity since Git. Once we understood Sourcetable’s ambition and vision, we were eager to invest,” added Tom-Preston Werner, GitHub Co-founder, Partner, Preston-Werner Ventures.
“When you first see the product, the immediate reaction is equal parts ‘this is the future’ and ‘I can’t believe they actually did it’ given how complex a product like this is. Which is obviously a powerful combination for any investor, and Sourcetable nailed that the first time I met the team,” James Beshara, Magic Mind Co-founder.
“Eoin is relentless, if there is a better spreadsheet to be built, he will find a way,” said Lee Jacobs, Partner at Long Journey Ventures.
“We’ve always had a thesis around “data democratisation” because we believe that data insights is still largely inaccessible to most knowledge workers who are not technically trained. We got excited about the opportunity to partner with Eoin and Sourcetable because we believe in the shared vision of making data easily accessible through connected spreadsheets, the preferred user interface of billions of knowledge workers worldwide,” stated Melody Koh, Partner at NextView Ventures.
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