AI assistant for Excel — builds spreadsheets and models in minutes
HQ: New York, NY | Founded: 2023 | Employees: 4 | Stage: Acquired | Website: https://usecarousel.com
Carousel Technologies built AI-powered add-ins for Microsoft Office, specializing in Excel automation. The flagship product was an AI assistant that could create and edit complex Excel models from natural language prompts, ingest data from multiple file formats (PDFs, CSVs, images), explain cell precedents and dependents, and build professional chart dashboards. The company also developed a change-tracking tool for PowerPoint and Excel that captured version history. Founded in 2023 by Jude Rizzo and Daniel Wolf. Accepted into Y Combinator Winter 2024 batch. Backed by Y Combinator, Soma Capital, and Unpopular Ventures. In 2025, Carousel was acquired by AlphaSense, a business intelligence platform valued at $4 billion with 6,000+ corporate clients. The entire Carousel team was integrated into AlphaSense to develop AI-powered spreadsheet generation capabilities.
Carousel built a genuinely useful AI tool for Excel at a time when LLMs were just beginning to be applied to spreadsheet workflows. The team of 2-4 got into YC W24, built both an AI spreadsheet builder and a change-tracking add-in, and achieved a quick exit to AlphaSense within ~2 years. AlphaSense ($4B valuation, $500M+ ARR) acquiring them signals the strategic value of AI-powered spreadsheet automation for enterprise intelligence workflows.
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