HR & recruiting

Ignition Benefits

Website

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 ab

Founded 2026Origin source ↗Checked 2026-09-15

Overview

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.

Company description As recorded 2026-11-08
LinkedIn Pricing
HR & recruitingIndustry softwareBusinessesSmall businessesSubscription

Founders & team

Nick Taranto

Founder/CEO

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.

LinkedIn X
Founder profile As recorded 2026-09-15
8team members reported
Source-reported As recorded 2026-09-15

Founded 2026 · Source

News & product activity

Sources & observations

Y Combinator

Profile depthenriched profile
Website observationwebsite reachable
Last website check2026-11-11
Location · source statedLos Angeles, CA, USA
Pricing evidenceNo pricing page confirmed
Maturity: Not assessed · 2 of 6 areas documented

Source-based assessment · automated evidence rules

The retained text does not establish product availability or customer use.

Maturity is an evidence-based assessment, not a success rating. It may understate the current stage where evidence is limited. Coverage records documented areas, not a complete or independently audited company history.

  • Product overviewSource description Checked 2026-11-08
  • Product visualsNot documented
  • Founders & originsTeam information
  • Business model & pricingNot documented
  • Funding & ownershipNot documented
  • Dated milestonesNot documented
Stage definitions
independent websitesource corroborationreachable websitedescriptive evidenceclassified market and modelsourced peoplesourced founding yearrecent publishing observed
startup.observe Directory coverage · Sources & method