Wiring PitchBook, Moody's, and FactSet Directly Into Excel with Federated Connectors
Deal and portfolio analytics have a copy-paste tax. The data you need sits in [PitchBook](https://pitchbook.com), [Moody's](https://www.moodys.com) or [FactSet](https://www.factset.com), your model sits in Excel, and the bridge between them is a person tabbing back and forth, pasting values that are correct for exactly as long as it takes to paste the next one. Microsoft has started dismantling that tax with federated Copilot connectors, which use the Model Context Protocol to bring live third-party data into the workbook itself.
The first wave [arrived in May](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft365copilotblog/what%E2%80%99s-new-in-microsoft-365-copilot--may-2026/4522010), with LSEG and Moody's among the initial partners available inside Excel. The [June finance-focused update](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/06/25/copilot-in-excel-built-for-the-era-of-frontier-finance/) widened the roster considerably, adding a broader set of providers that includes CB Insights, Daloopa, FactSet, Morningstar, PitchBook and S&P Global. The point of the design is that the data stays live and stays governed: the connection runs through your organisation's Work IQ layer with native security controls, rather than through a spreadsheet someone emailed around.
Setting one up is closer to enabling an integration than writing an API client. An administrator connects the provider your firm licenses, the connector surfaces inside Copilot in Excel, and analysts can then reference that source in the flow of their work instead of exporting a report and reshaping it by hand. For a portfolio team, that means credit and reference data flowing straight into the monitoring model; for a deal team, it means comparables and market intelligence arriving where the analysis actually happens.
The discipline point is the same one that applies to any live feed. When a number can change under you between opens, you want lineage — which provider supplied it, when, and against which model input it maps — so a reviewer can trace any figure back to its source. A connector removes the copy-paste error; it does not remove your obligation to know where the number came from.
At Cell Fusion Solutions Inc we set these connectors up alongside a lightweight lineage layer, so the convenience of live data does not cost you the audit trail. Once the feeds are wired in properly, the analytics stop living in a graveyard of pasted exports and start living in the model, refreshed and defensible — which is where they belonged all along.
