Excel First FP&A for Microsoft
Vena at $116M ARR
Vena is winning by selling change without forcing behavior change. Finance teams keep the Excel models they already trust, but Vena adds the missing pieces that break once a company grows, like live data from ERP, CRM, and HR systems, controlled workflows, approvals, and version control. That makes it a strong fit for midmarket Microsoft shops that want better planning, but do not want an Anaplan style rebuild.
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The product is concrete and familiar. A planner opens an assigned task, generates an Excel sheet from a template, works in Excel, and saves changes back to a central database. That removes the usual spreadsheet pain, where teams email files around, lose track of versions, and manually paste in actuals each month.
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This is the opposite bet from newer FP&A vendors like Equals, Runway, and Causal. Those products try to replace the spreadsheet with a new collaborative interface or modeling system. Vena instead treats Excel loyalty as an asset, which matters because many finance teams still do their real work there even after buying planning software.
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The Microsoft angle gives Vena a broader wedge than budgeting alone. By linking Excel based plans into PowerPoint for board decks, Power BI for dashboards, and Dynamics 365 Business Central for source data, it can spread from core FP&A into sales, headcount, and operational planning inside the same Microsoft first workflow.
The next phase is a land grab for the finance teams that want modernization without retraining. If Vena keeps turning Excel into a connected planning system, it can grow from a budgeting tool into the default planning layer for Microsoft centric midmarket companies, while newer browser native rivals compete for teams that are ready to leave spreadsheets behind.