London-based employee benefits platform Ben has closed a $16m (£13m) Series A investment to accelerate the development of its software and payments technology.
Founded from a desire to modernise the compensation and benefits sector, Ben lets companies create custom benefits packages that are accessed via an employee allowance system.
Employees choose the benefits they want, and by doing so spend this allowance on things like insurance, counselling, and subscriptions to mental health services. Leftover allowance can be spent with the Ben Mastercard.
Ben also provides a single digital platform for HR managers to handle payroll systems, enrolment, and offboarding.
It counts companies like Deliveroo, Bitpanda, Funding Circle, and Zalando as customers using its platform.
The startup was first founded in 2015 and said the Covid-19 pandemic was a period of significant growth for the company. Lockdown forced many firms to change the way they operate completely, having to embrace solutions to support the modern employee.
From boomers to Gen Z
The co-founder and CEO of Ben, Sebastian Fallert, said that right now, the workforce has four separate generations working alongside each other.
Fallert claimed that the varying needs of different generations and different workers mean benefits should be more flexibly delivered.
“Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z participate in a complex global economy, and their benefit requirements vary and fluctuate,” Fallert said.
“Companies, many of whom are spending around 33% of payroll on benefits, are reassessing their traditional benefits packages to fit more culturally and ethnically diverse teams distributed around the world.”
The funding round was led by Atomico and featured participation from Cherry Ventures, DN Capital, and Seedcamp.
It also included an angel investment from Ross Seychell, chief people officer at HR software company Personio.
“The challenge of managing benefits has become increasingly difficult for companies with a global workforce, especially given the ongoing war for top talent,” said Atomico Partner Sasha Vidiborskiy.
“Ben’s unique platform massively reduces the admin burden on HR and seamlessly delivers benefits that employees really care about.”
The latest funding round has brought the total amount raised by Ben to $21m (£17.1). The company previously raised £1.8m in a seed funding round in February 2021.
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