Runway replaces budgeting inbox
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Siqi Chen, CEO of Runway, on building browser-based collaborative FP&A
Every other product that exists is a much simpler product, which is: here's a form, fill it out, and I'll track the status of it
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Runway is trying to replace the budgeting inbox, not just organize it. Most FP&A software helps finance send templates, chase approvals, and merge answers back into a master model. Runway is built around the harder idea that sales, product, marketing, and finance should do the actual planning in one shared model, with live data, scenarios, and workflow living in the same place.
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Incumbents like Anaplan solve two painful jobs well, pulling live data from systems like ERP and CRM, and speeding up quarterly budget collection. But finance teams still often build the real model in spreadsheets first, then paste results into the platform, which keeps the actual thinking outside the system.
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Runway's product shape is closer to Figma or Airtable than to a request form. Department leaders can model headcount, pipeline, roadmap, or marketing plans directly, submit changes like pull requests, and see how those changes flow through the company forecast. That is what Siqi Chen means by a tool for thought.
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The broader modern FP&A group splits here. Causal emphasizes flexible modeling and custom views on top of finance owned models. Pry focused on replacing startup spreadsheets and bookkeeping. Vena goes the other direction, keeping Excel as the front end for teams that do not want to leave it.
The next phase of FP&A will be won by whichever product becomes the place where non finance teams actually plan. If Runway can make product, sales, and marketing leaders comfortable doing their real forecasting inside the system, finance software stops being a quarterly admin tool and becomes the operating system for how a company decides where to spend and grow.