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This startup enables employees to pick their own benefits. Check out the 13-slide pitch deck Ben used to raise $16 million.
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- London-based employee benefits platform Ben has raised $16 million in Series A funding.
- The platform gives employees a budget to pick their own benefits.
- Check out the 13-slide pitch deck the cofounders used to land the fresh capital.
A startup that has built an employee benefits platform to service the world of hybrid working has raised $16 million in fresh funds from venture capital firm Atomico.
London-based Ben, founded in 2019, offers a marketplace of different benefits that enables employees to pick the ones most suitable for them. The platform includes everything from mental health support to fertility to life insurance.
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Employers assign employees an allowance that can be used on health and wellbeing, learning development, or as a work-from-home stipend. Workers are set up with a Ben Mastercard, physical or digital, that can be used both on and off the platform to make any purchase a benefit, depending on the rules set by their companies.
Cofounder Sebastian Fallert had the idea while working at Secret Escapes, which acquired his former company JustBook. Secret Escapes had 1,200 staff when Fallert left, which opened his eyes to the complexity of employee benefits, he told Insider.
“Every month there were spreadsheets, manual adjustments to pension plans and health insurance plans. Oh, X is on maternity, she has a different deal this month and so on,” Fallert said.
Ben, which is short for benefits, also manages pensions, life insurance, and health insurance, and allows employees to tweak their contributions and add family members to policies.
The platform frees HR departments from having to source and manage benefits, a “difficult task” that should cater to the whole team, according to cofounder David Duckworth. It also removes the need for teams to be reimbursed in a “clunky way” or taking payments out of a person’s salary, Duckworth said.
“You have three generations in the workplace,” Fallert added. “They are in different situations, some have families, others don’t, some work remote, others work hybrid. It’s become much more diverse and multifaceted. Companies increasingly want to offer choice and flexibility in order to cater for their workforces.”
Different markets have different rules when it comes to benefits and what is taxable, the cofounders said. In Germany, for example, there is a tax-free non-cash benefit allowance of up to 50 euros (around $51) a month. In Spain, meal vouchers are commonplace.
“Health insurance works differently in different markets as well,” Duckworth added. “In terms of what’s actually allowable, what’s covered, the types of underwriting, and the data the insurer needs about an employee to be able to accurately price them. It works slightly different in Australia versus South Africa versus the US.”
The platform is good at dealing with this admin, he said, as it has built-in reporting tools for everything from tax to engagement.
Ben boasts a client list of over 150 companies globally, it said. They range from mid-sized, remote-first companies to large enterprises. Its sweet spot is companies with “a few 100 to a few 1000 employees.”
The Series A round, which had participation from Cherry Ventures, DN Capital, Seedcamp, brings the company’s total funding raised to $21 million. Angels including Remote cofounder, Job van der Voort, Peakon CEO Neil Ryland, and Personio’s chief people officer Ross Seychell also joined the round.
The cash will be used to double its 35-strong headcount by the end of the year, with a focus on the commercial team. Fallert and Duckworth will also build out Ben’s technology for dealing with local intricacies of how benefits work in different markets.
Check out the 13-slide redacted pitch deck below.
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