London-based Ben Raises $16M Series A for the Future of Global Benefits
Today, we are beyond excited to share that we have raised a $16m Series A to continue building the future of global benefits. This fresh funding will enable us to move even faster in making benefits work for everyone, everywhere and bring the world’s best employee benefits experience to more customers and their employees.
As increasing volatility and uncertainty loom – helping employers and employees get more value from their benefits is more critical than ever.
For companies, employee benefits are ever more complex: teams are increasingly global and hybrid, cost pressures are testing budgets, while workforce diversity demands an ever broader offering. At the same time, for employees the experience is distinctly underwhelming compared to most other areas of our work lives: limited choice, unclear communication, and a lingering feeling that one would rather be paid a little bit more instead.
People teams all over the world spend a lot of time figuring out what to offer to their teams, sourcing benefits, and drowning in administration including data exchange with providers, answering employee questions, payments, tax, and compliance. The worst bit? A lot of effort and money ends up spent on benefits that don’t matter to employees.
At Ben we’ve been busy since raising our Seed Round in early 2020 working with our wonderful customers to build the future of global, flexible benefits. We have built an incredible team of 35 (and growing) across London, Berlin and beyond – all excited to change the way benefits work for good.
The future of global employee benefits
Ben is the first true all-in-one platform to manage global, flexible employee benefits.
Companies move all of their existing benefits (pension, health or life insurance and more) as well as any budgets (health & wellbeing, learning & development, working from home, …) into Ben alongside the rules of who gets what. Employees then get to make choices based on what matters to them – allocating budget and configuring their own insurance coverage, pension, and choosing from hundreds of additional benefits across mental, physical, social, and financial wellbeing even using their own Ben Benefits Mastercard that can turn anything into a benefit.
People teams around the world love Ben as it enables them to offer an instantly competitive benefits programme tailored to their needs, through one platform, without breaking the bank. Integrations with HRIS and Payroll as well as rules-based automation put tedious administration on autopilot. Most importantly, employees get to enjoy benefits that actually make a difference!
There are so many benefits products coming to market from new insurance products to mental health, fertility, parenthood support, financial advice, and retirement just to name a few. But we believe complexity limits innovation in the ecosystem and there should be so much more to support every employee based on what they need most right now. Ben’s open software platform combined with payment infrastructure has been built from the ground up to become the first central place to connect benefits suppliers, insurers, and brokers with companies and their employees.
While we’ve come a long way already, we’re still just scratching the surface of what can (and we feel must) be done. Our ambition is to connect the ecosystem and redefine how benefits are distributed and managed today, giving any employee access to the benefits that matter to them while making it a no-brainer for companies to offer them.
We can’t wait to show you what’s next for the product – from self-serve onboarding and configuration to ever more automation and integration alongside a universe of exciting benefits just waiting to be unlocked for the world’s workforce.
Welcome Atomico!
Our Series A is led by Atomico with participation from our existing investors Cherry Ventures, Seedcamp, and DN Capital. Ever since our first meeting with Sasha, Niklas and the team we knew we couldn’t wish for a better partner for the next part of the journey. Atomico have a deep understanding of the problem, strongly believe in our vision for the future and started adding value from day zero, long before the investment.
We’re fortunate to be supported by some of the best operators in HR and FinTech and excited to be welcoming even more Angels as part of this round. Beyond happy to be embarking on this next chapter for Ben together!
Most importantly, thank you to our wonderful customers for trusting us even when we were just getting started, we can’t wait to show you all that is to come in the months and years ahead.
Needless to say, none of this would have been possible without the incredible Ben team – thank you for getting us to where we are today and for making it an incredible place to work. We’re fortunate to be working with all of you every day.
Looking for a job? We’re doubling the team and always looking for great individuals, check out our open roles here.
Back to work!
Seb and David
