Cori Clinical Raises $4M Funding to Cut the Cost of Clinical Trial Protocol Amendments

Cori Clinical, the London-based AI workspace for clinical trial design, has raised $4 million (£3.2 million) in seed funding** led by Breega, with participation from Enzo, Heartfelt, Together Ventures, and Bynd. The round brings Cori Clinical’s total disclosed funding to approximately **$4.5 million following a pre-seed round in 2025.

The funding comes as Cori Clinical’s AI platform moves into commercial deployment with two of the world’s five largest enterprise contract research organizations (CROs) and Erasmus MC, a major academic medical center in Rotterdam, where it supported clinical trials in neurosurgery and neuro-oncology.

Cori Clinical Funding Overview By CREDX Media

Startup Name	Cori Clinical
Founders	Jorn Jansen Schoonhoven (CEO), Patricio Fernández (CTO)
Founded	2025
HQ	London, UK
Round	Seed Funding
Amount Raised	$4M (£3.2M)
Valuation	Not disclosed
Category	Clinical Trials AI, HealthTech, Life Sciences Software
Lead Investor	Breega
Key Investors	Enzo, Heartfelt, Together Ventures, Bynd
Total Funding Raised	~$4.5M
Chief Clinical Officer	Dr. Emma Ogburn (joined Oct 2026)
Key Customers	2 of world’s 5 largest CROs, Erasmus MC
Emissions Target	33% reduction in trial setup costs

💡 Use of Funds

• Delivery Capacity Expansion: Scaling operations to support growing customer demand.
• Team Growth: Hiring across clinical, engineering, and commercial functions.
• Regulatory Intelligence: Deepening clinical and regulatory content within the platform.
• Customer Relationships: Developing broader commercial partnerships with CROs and pharma companies.

Startup Overview: Cori Clinical

What Cori Clinical Is Building in Simple Words

Cori Clinical has developed an AI workspace that connects clinical trial decisions, documents, and costs into a single, continuously updated “living blueprint.” The platform brings together an organization’s internal knowledge—previous protocols, budgets, SOPs, and templates—with external intelligence from trial registries and regulatory agencies including the FDA, MHRA, and EMA.

• Living Blueprint: A single, versioned record of the trial that connects design decisions to budgets, timelines, and operational plans.
• Document Generation: Protocols, informed consent forms, statistical analysis plans, site budgets, and regulatory submissions are generated from the same structured record.
• AI-Guided, Human-Controlled: The platform authors documents and surfaces gaps, but clinical teams retain approval authority. When the system cannot ground a section in available information, it asks for input rather than inventing answers.
• Risk Identification: Teams can assess proposed designs against previous experience and external evidence, identifying risks and connecting study-design decisions with operational realities.

Why Cori Clinical Matters

1. Protocol Amendments Are a Massive, Growing Burden More than 75% of clinical trial protocols now require at least one substantial amendment, averaging 3.3 amendments per protocol. Each Phase III amendment can introduce nearly three months of delay and up to $1 million in unplanned direct costs.
2. Early Design Errors Cascade Downstream Getting early decisions wrong is costly. A single error in a protocol or misaligned submission can cost sponsors months and millions. For patients waiting for new treatments, that delay is measured in hope.
3. Fragmentation Is the Root Cause CEO Jorn Jansen Schoonhoven frames the problem: “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.”
4. Measurable Impact Potential Based on internal modeling, Cori estimates its approach could reduce average trial setup costs by at least 33%. In an internal evaluation benchmarked against amendments from completed trials, its AI reviewer identified 82% of protocol errors classified as avoidable.

Startup Story: From Pharma Data Science to Trial Design Infrastructure

Cori Clinical was founded in 2025 by Jorn Jansen Schoonhoven (CEO) and Patricio Fernández (CTO). The founders brought a combination of AI product experience and deep clinical data science expertise.

Schoonhoven spent seven years building AI products at Amazon and IBM before moving to Octopus Ventures to invest in AI startups. Fernández Weisson was previously Data Science Director at Evinova, AstraZeneca‘s health-tech unit, and Lead Data Scientist at Sanofi, giving him five years of focused experience developing AI for pharma and clinical trials.

The founding insight came from Fernández’s experience inside drug development organizations. He saw how much time clinical teams spent on manual, repetitive tasks—re-entering the same information across disconnected documents and systems. The founders built Cori to capture the reasoning behind a study once and carry it through every document it generates.

In October 2026, Cori added Dr. Emma Ogburn as Chief Clinical Officer. Ogburn brings more than 20 years of hands-on experience running global trials, including work on UK national-priority COVID-19 trials at the University of Oxford Clinical Trials Unit.

Our Take on Cori Clinical

Cori Clinical is solving the least glamorous problem in clinical development—document sprawl—and that’s precisely why it matters.

Clinical trials generate thousands of interconnected documents before a single patient is enrolled. Protocols, consent forms, budgets, regulatory submissions—each depends on the others, and a change in one cascades through all of them. Most AI tools focus on a single document or workflow. Cori’s insight is that the real problem is the connections between documents, not any individual piece.

The $4 million seed is justified on multiple fronts: early traction with two of the world’s five largest CROs, a founding team with deep pharma and AI experience, and a clear, measurable value proposition (33% setup cost reduction, 82% avoidable error detection). The addition of Dr. Ogburn as Chief Clinical Officer signals that Cori is investing in the clinical credibility needed to sell into regulated buyers.

The real risk isn’t technical—Cori has demonstrated its platform works in live trials. The risk is adoption velocity. Clinical development is notoriously conservative. Sponsors and CROs need to see validated results across multiple trials before committing to a new workflow. Cori’s disclosed examples establish use at two CROs and an academic hospital, but they don’t yet quantify the reduction in live study rework.

For now, Cori has capital, early customers, and a clear thesis: connect the decisions, documents, and costs before they fragment. The next 18 months will determine whether it can become the connective layer for clinical trial design.

Founder Background: The Team Connecting Pharma Data Science to AI Product

Jorn Jansen Schoonhoven (CEO) brings a blend of AI product leadership and venture investing to Cori. He spent seven years building AI products at Amazon and IBM, served as IBM’s chief of staff for EMEA, and later invested in AI startups at Octopus Ventures.

Patricio Fernández (CTO) is the technical force behind the platform. As Data Science Director at Evinova (AstraZeneca’s health-tech unit) and Lead Data Scientist at Sanofi, he spent five years developing AI for pharma and clinical trials—experience directly relevant to Cori’s mission.

Dr. Emma Ogburn (Chief Clinical Officer) joined in October 2026. She brings more than 20 years of experience running global trials across multiple phases and therapeutic areas, including work on UK national-priority COVID-19 trials at the University of Oxford.

The combination—Schoonhoven’s AI product and investing background, Fernández’s pharma data science depth, and Ogburn’s clinical operations experience—positions Cori to navigate both the technical and regulatory challenges of clinical trial infrastructure.

The Clinical Trial AI Race Nobody Expected

Cori operates in a growing field of AI startups targeting clinical development.

Biorce, a Barcelona-based competitor, raised **$52 million in Series A** in February 2026 for its Aika platform, which aims to reduce protocol development time by 50% and save $200,000-$400,000 per avoided amendment. Biorce’s platform is built on a dataset of approximately one million clinical trials.

Cori’s differentiation lies in its focus on the connections between documents and costs, not just protocol authoring. While Biorce emphasizes rapid protocol generation, Cori builds a living blueprint that links design decisions to budgets, timelines, and operational plans—addressing the downstream consequences of early choices.

The competitive moat is workflow integration. By connecting documents that are typically managed separately, Cori reduces the rework and re-entry that plague trial startup. The more documents and teams on the platform, the more valuable the living blueprint becomes.

Founder Intelligence: What Founders Can Learn from Cori Clinical

• Solve the connection problem, not the document problem: Cori didn’t build a better protocol writer—it built a workspace that connects protocols, budgets, and submissions. The value is in the links.
• Traction with enterprise customers validates the model: Working with two of the world’s five largest CROs before seed funding demonstrates that the problem is real and the solution resonates.
• Hire clinical credibility early: Adding Dr. Emma Ogburn as Chief Clinical Officer signals that Cori understands regulated buyers need clinical legitimacy, not just AI capability.
• Measure what matters: Cori’s 33% cost reduction estimate and 82% avoidable error detection are specific, measurable claims that give buyers something concrete to evaluate.

Investor Intelligence: Why This Round Gets Premium Capital

Breega led the round. Matthieu Vallin, Partner at Breega, framed the thesis: “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.”

Enzo, Heartfelt, Together Ventures, and Bynd participated, bringing healthtech and early-stage expertise.

The angel network includes notable figures from health-tech and AI: Maarten Alblas (founder of DataSnipper), Ben Peters (founder of Five AI and Cogna), and Tim Shi (founder of Cresta and Early Research at OpenAI). This network provides both capital and potential access to enterprise buyers.

The Road Ahead for Cori Clinical

Expansion Targets

With $4 million in capital, Cori Clinical will:

• Expand delivery capacity to support more CRO and pharma deployments
• Grow clinical, engineering, and commercial teams
• Deepen regulatory and clinical intelligence within the platform
• Develop broader commercial relationships with CROs and pharmaceutical companies

Competitive Response

Expect:

• Biorce and other clinical trial AI platforms to deepen workflow integration
• Traditional clinical trial software vendors to acquire or build AI features
• New startups targeting specific trial startup workflows
• Cori’s moat: living blueprint architecture + CRO customer traction + clinical leadership

Conclusion

Cori Clinical’s $4 million seed funding validates the thesis that connecting clinical trial decisions is more valuable than automating individual documents. The company’s early traction with two of the world’s five largest CROs and Erasmus MC demonstrates that its living blueprint approach resonates with enterprise buyers.

Market tailwinds favor Cori: protocol amendments are increasing, trial costs are rising, and the industry is actively seeking solutions to reduce startup delays. The company’s measurable value proposition—33% setup cost reduction, 82% avoidable error detection—gives buyers concrete metrics to evaluate.

For deep analysis of healthtech funding, clinical trial innovation, and companies reshaping drug development, explore CREDX Media for comprehensive coverage of startup funding trends, valuation intelligence, and founder playbooks.

Want the latest funding news and market insights delivered straight to your inbox? Subscribe to CredX Letters for verified deal terms, valuation benchmarks, and daily macro signals.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is Cori Clinical’s total funding and latest round size?
Cori Clinical has raised approximately $4.5 million total. Its $4 million (£3.2 million) seed round was led by Breega in October 2026, following a pre-seed round in 2025.

2. How much did Cori Clinical raise in its seed round and who led the investment?
Cori Clinical raised $4 million (£3.2 million) in seed funding led by Breega, with participation from Enzo, Heartfelt, Together Ventures, and Bynd.

3. What is the valuation of Cori Clinical?
Cori Clinical did not disclose its post-money valuation in the seed round. The company has raised approximately $4.5 million in total disclosed funding.

4. Who are the major investors in Cori Clinical?
Major investors include Breega (seed lead), Enzo, Heartfelt, Together Ventures, and Bynd, along with angels including Maarten Alblas, Ben Peters, and Tim Shi.

5. What traction justifies Cori Clinical’s seed funding?
Cori Clinical is working with two of the world’s five largest enterprise CROs and has supported clinical trials at Erasmus MC in neurosurgery and neuro-oncology.

6. Who are Cori Clinical’s founders?
Cori Clinical was founded in 2025 by Jorn Jansen Schoonhoven (CEO) and Patricio Fernández Weisson (CTO). Schoonhoven built AI products at Amazon and IBM; Fernández was Data Science Director at Evinova and Sanofi.

7. What is Cori Clinical’s business model?
Cori Clinical operates a B2B SaaS model, selling its AI workspace to CROs, pharmaceutical companies, and research institutions on a subscription basis. Pricing is not publicly disclosed.

8. How does Cori Clinical’s technology work?
Cori Clinical creates a “living blueprint” that connects trial design decisions to documents, budgets, and operational plans. The platform generates protocols, consent forms, budgets, and regulatory submissions from a single structured record.

9. What are Cori Clinical’s plans for the $4 million seed capital?
Cori Clinical will expand delivery capacity, grow its clinical, engineering, and commercial teams, and deepen regulatory intelligence within its platform.

10. What problem does Cori Clinical solve for clinical trials?
Cori Clinical addresses the fragmentation of trial design information across documents, teams, and systems. By connecting decisions to downstream documents and costs, it reduces rework, avoidable errors, and setup delays.

11. Who is the Chief Clinical Officer of Cori Clinical?
Dr. Emma Ogburn serves as Chief Clinical Officer, bringing more than 20 years of experience running global trials, including work on UK national-priority COVID-19 trials.