Ignition Benefits
New accelerator entry · 2026-09-15 · the record
In their words
Ignition is an AI-native employee benefits brokerage for companies with under 200 employees. Health insurance is one of the largest line items these companies carry, and employers absorb 15 to 40% rate increases year after year without ever seeing their own numbers. We have rebuilt the sales and back office to be AI-first. This market represents about $500B of market cap, and those businesses have not fundamentally changed in over 50 years. While scaling Plated, I wore every HR hat from doing payroll myself, to managing a PEO, to eventually hiring an employee benefits broker on our way to 1,500 employees. We wasted over $4M on benefits over 5 years, and I'm building Ignition to help companies under 200 employees avoid making my mistakes.
What the record says
Checked away from the directory entry. What is below does not come from the company's Y Combinator page.
Stop overpaying for benefits. Get transparent pricing, 15-30% savings, and expert guidance. Built for startups and high-growth companies.
The title and description the site itself served, answering 200. Not a cached copy and not the company's directory entry — what was live when we asked.
Founder at Ignition Benefits. Previously founded Plated, the first American meal kit company (sold to Albertsons for $300M in 2017). Former US Marine Corps. MBA from Harvard; BA from Dartmouth. While scaling Plated, I wore every HR hat from doing payroll myself, to managing a PEO, to eventually hiring an employee benefits broker on our way to 1,500 employees. We wasted over $4M on benefits over 5 years, and I'm building Ignition to help companies under 200 employees avoid making my mistakes.
Founders, titles and bios as the company published them. Photographs are our own copies of the ones on that record, so they do not break when the original link expires.
- 1 founder named on the directory entry.
- One of 10 companies held here in Fintech › Insurance.
No investor is drawn from a Form D — the form states how many invested and never who. The one investor on this graph is named because a batch has exactly one.
The full profile
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Sourced from the company's Y Combinator directory entry, and from the company's own site, read directly on 2026-09-15 (ignitionbenefits.com).