Cori Clinical raises $4m seed to speed up clinical trial design

Cori Clinical raises $4m seed to speed up clinical trial design

7 October 2026: Cori Clinical, a London company that sells an AI workspace for designing clinical trials, has closed a $4 million seed round led by Breega. Enzo, Heartfelt, Together Ventures and Bynd also took part, according to the company's announcement.

Not yet independently verified. The cost saving and error-detection figures come from Cori's own modelling and internal evaluation, not from an outside test. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

The money will widen the company's capacity to deliver to customers, grow the team and deepen the regulatory and clinical knowledge built into the platform. It also lets Cori turn interest from contract research organisations (CROs) and drug developers into larger commercial relationships. Dr Emma Ogburn joins as chief clinical officer from Lindus Health; earlier she worked at Cancer Research UK and at the University of Oxford.

Cori's pitch is that trial design decisions are scattered across old studies, separate teams and documents. The workspace combines a customer's own trial experience with outside material such as clinical-trial registries and guidance from the FDA, the MHRA and the European Medicines Agency. It then helps teams turn a trial brief into a protocol, a submission package and operational plans, and flags risks when new guidance appears.

The company cites a 2026 Tufts CSDD study finding that 76% of protocols are amended, at a direct cost of about $141,000 for a Phase II protocol and $535,000 for Phase III. From its own modelling, Cori estimates it could cut average trial set-up costs by at least 33%. In an internal evaluation against amendments from completed trials, its AI reviewer flagged 82% of the errors classed as avoidable.

Cori says it works with two of the top five enterprise CROs globally. Erasmus MC in Rotterdam used the platform on two trials in neurosurgery and neuro-oncology; its research coordinator Dr Judith Verhagen-Oldenampsen said drafting the protocol and Investigator Brochure took weeks rather than months.

Breega partner Matthieu Vallin said: "Clinical trial start-up is a critical but often overlooked bottleneck in drug development."

Cori was founded in 2025 by Jorn Jansen Schoonhoven (chief executive), formerly of Amazon and IBM, and Patricio Fernandez Weisson (chief technology officer), who previously led data science at Sanofi and AstraZeneca.

Company profile on TrustList: Cori Clinical

Sources

• Cori Clinical: Cori Clinical raises $4m seed round, 7 October 2026
• Tech.eu: Cori Clinical secures $4M seed, 7 October 2026