Paradigm, founded by 23-year-old AI prodigy Anna Monaco, raises $5M from General Catalyst for viral AI spreadsheet

Paradigm wants to turn the spreadsheet into something entirely different: a living workspace powered by swarms of AI agents. The startup, founded by 23-year-old Anna Monaco, just secured $5 million in seed funding led by General Catalyst, along with $2 million in earlier pre-seed funding from Y Combinator and a roster of well-known founders from Dropbox, LangChain, Intercom, Ramp, and others. With the funding announcement comes a broader launch—anyone can now try Paradigm at paradigmai.com.

At its core, Paradigm looks like a spreadsheet. But under the hood, each cell runs its own AI agent, capable of finding, verifying, and filling in data. That means the sheet doesn’t just store numbers—it actively researches, analyzes, and produces deliverables in real time. The approach has struck a chord: since its beta release in late 2024, Paradigm has attracted thousands of users across consulting firms, banks, and tech companies. Firms like McKinsey and Cognition are already running workflows on it, with tasks that once dragged on for days now finishing in minutes.

With 10,000 users and $5M in funding, Paradigm is opening its AI-native spreadsheet to the public

Monaco, who landed on Forbes 30 Under 30 for AI last year, has built momentum quickly. A viral waitlist that topped 10,000 signups, millions of views across social media, and adoption by high-profile firms have put Paradigm in the spotlight. The company says its spreadsheet is now ten times faster, capable of generating up to 5,000 cells per minute—work that would otherwise take hours or weeks of manual research. Market mapping, customer segmentation, outbound prospecting: all handled by fleets of AI agents working in parallel.

“Our mission is to build an interface that allows individuals to distribute their ability to reason, one that makes agent orchestration widely and pervasively accessible,” said Anna Monaco, Founder and CEO of Paradigm. “Over the past year we have turned Paradigm into a full-fledged workspace with live collaboration, shared folders and sheets, workflow support, and even the ability to send emails and create documents. Entire companies are being run on Paradigm at this point.”

That expansion beyond spreadsheets is deliberate. Paradigm now supports writing documents in rich text, real-time collaboration, shared folders, and an upgraded chat agent. It’s also built to integrate with leading AI models, including GPT-5, giving users the ability to tap into deeper reasoning and larger agent jobs. The aim isn’t to replace Excel for financial modeling—it’s to repurpose the familiar grid as a canvas for research and automation at scale.

“Paradigm does research at such a scale and depth that would not even be feasible with humans,” said Matt Nicosia, Head of AI Operations at Crossbeam. “Paradigm is more accurate than any other solution we’ve tested and was incredibly easy to get up and running.”

The pricing is straightforward: Paradigm starts at $20 per month, with options for power users to upgrade to faster models or usage-based pricing. Every plan includes access to agent swarms capable of processing thousands of cells per minute. General Catalyst’s Niko Bonatsos, who led the seed, sees Paradigm as an early look at how work itself will shift. “Watching thousands of agents work in parallel to answer complex business questions in seconds feels like a glimpse into the future of knowledge work,” he said.

For Monaco, the spreadsheet is just the entry point. By rethinking the most universal workplace tool, she’s betting Paradigm can become the AI-native platform where teams do their most important work—without ever leaving the sheet.