London Startup Cori Clinical Raises $4M to Fast-Track Trials

Jan de Vries · 2026-10-07

Clinical trials are the backbone of medical progress, but they often get bogged down in delays and inefficiencies. A London-based startup, Cori Clinical, is on a mission to change that. The company just closed a $4 million seed round to accelerate trials and reduce costly delays. In this article, we'll explore what Cori does, why it matters, and how it plans to make a difference. ### The Funding Round Cori Clinical secured €3.56 million ($4 million) in a seed round led by Breega, with participation from Enzo, Heartfelt, Together Ventures, and Bynd. This fresh capital will fuel the company's growth and enhance its platform. Specifically, Cori plans to: - Expand delivery capacity to serve more clients. - Grow the team, including the appointment of Dr. Emma Ogburn as Chief Clinical Officer. Dr. Ogburn joins from Lindus Health, bringing a wealth of experience. - Deepen the regulatory and clinical intelligence within Cori's platform. ### What Cori Clinical Does Founded in 2025 by Jorn Jansen Schoonhoven (CEO) and Patricio Fernández (CTO), Cori Clinical acts as the intelligence layer for clinical trials. It creates a "living blueprint" of a trial from initial idea through execution. Think of it as a dynamic workspace that unifies a clinical team's collective insight and organizational experience with trusted external intelligence. As Schoonhoven explains, "Clinical trials are built through a series of interconnected decisions about how a study should be designed and run. Today, much of the knowledge and precedent behind those decisions is scattered across previous trials, siloed teams, internal systems and separate documents. Cori brings that intelligence together into a living blueprint, so teams can make better-informed decisions before avoidable problems become delays, so the science never waits on the process." ### The Problem: Fragmented Processes and Costly Delays Clinical trials still rely on fragmented processes and disconnected sources of information. This makes it hard for teams to apply relevant precedent and assess the wider implications of early design decisions. And getting those early decisions wrong is expensive. Amended protocols, for example, lead to longer recruitment periods and overall study durations. As the company points out, "That is frustrating for everyone involved: CROs trying to run trials effectively and cost-efficiently; sponsors trying to reach 'first participant in' as quickly as possible; and, most importantly, patients waiting for new treatments that depend on a trial starting." ### The Solution: An AI-Powered Workspace Cori Clinical offers an AI workspace that brings together an organization's clinical trial knowledge with external intelligence from sources like the FDA, MHRA, and EMA. It helps clinical teams turn an initial trial brief into a full protocol, submission package, and operational plans, all built against current regulatory guidance. Instead of dealing with a single document or workflow, Cori helps teams build and maintain a living blueprint for a feasible and executable trial. As new guidance is published, Cori integrates it into the workspace and flags the risks and decisions that matter for a trial's success. This lets teams test proposed designs against their experience and the wider evidence base, identify risks, assess options, and link study-design decisions to budgets, timelines, and operational plans. ### The Impact: Reducing Trial Set-Up Costs by 33% Based on internal modeling using average trial set-up costs, historical modification rates, and time to 'first participant in', Cori estimates that its approach could reduce average trial set-up costs by at least 33%. That's a significant saving that could speed up drug development and bring treatments to patients faster. ### Investor Perspective Matthieu Vallin, Partner at Breega, which led the funding round, said, "Clinical trial start-up is a critical but often overlooked bottleneck in drug development, with months lost between designing a trial and enrolling the first patient. Cori is bringing the intelligence and connected workflows needed to make that process faster, and we're excited to back Jorn, Patricio and Emma and the team." ### What's Next for Cori Clinical? With this new funding, Cori Clinical is poised to expand its reach and continue innovating. The addition of Dr. Ogburn as Chief Clinical Officer will strengthen the company's clinical expertise. As the platform evolves, it could become an essential tool for clinical trials worldwide, helping to bring life-saving treatments to market sooner. For those in the clinical trial space, Cori Clinical is definitely a name to watch. Their approach to unifying knowledge and streamlining decision-making could be a game-changer.