A former Scale AI product lead has raised a $25 million seed round for Corridor, an AI-powered health benefits brokerage targeting small businesses. The round, led by Bain Capital Ventures, closed on Monday and includes backing from BoxGroup and executives at OpenAI, Scale AI, and Ramp.
Corridor pairs human advisors with AI agents that handle administrative work in the background. The company says its agents check whether a doctor is in a customer's insurance network, schedule care, and update provider information - tasks that eat up time for small business owners and their employees.
"We are every single employee and management's concierge for all things healthcare," said Nikhil Aggarwal, Corridor's CEO.
A personal injury sparks the idea
Jackson Wagner, who left his product lead role at Scale AI in July 2022, started down this path after a running accident. The poor handling of his care led to "significant, consistent, chronic pain," he said. "I developed a long list of complications that needed to be worked through one by one."
Wagner earned a master's degree in computer science and electrical engineering at UC Berkeley and later joined Build Robotics in 2023. He then teamed up with former Scale AI colleague Eric Qian to work on Capernaum AI, a startup building a clinical agent for musculoskeletal care and chronic pain.
The two approached Cold Start for funding. Aggarwal, a partner at the firm along with Jason Dong, saw a larger opportunity. The four co-founded Corridor instead.
"Since health plans are the window through which the vast majority of Americans access healthcare, it became overwhelmingly clear that one of the highest impact things I could do to improve outcomes for individuals was to create a way for them to access better health plans," Wagner said.
The small business gap in benefits brokerage
Traditional brokerages often neglect small businesses because small accounts generate lower commissions while requiring the same time investment as larger ones. Corridor's bet is that AI can shift that equation by automating the repetitive paperwork that makes small accounts unprofitable.
Other companies in this space include Ignition Benefits and Nava Benefits. Corridor is now preparing for the fourth quarter, when 80% of small businesses choose their health plans, according to Aggarwal.
"Our vision is to build the most trusted healthcare institution in America," he said. "To earn that, we are laser-focused on a simple promise: doing what we say we're going to do for the businesses and employees we serve."
Why this matters for customer support, finance, healthcare, and insurance professionals
Corridor's model points to a pattern taking hold across insurance and benefits: AI handling the administrative layer while humans manage relationships and complex decisions. For customer support and insurance professionals, this means the tedious parts of the job - verifying network status, updating provider details, chasing down information - are the first targets for automation. The roles that remain will demand deeper expertise in plan design, compliance, and client consulting. Professionals who build those skills now, particularly through focused training in AI for Healthcare Courses and AI for Insurance Courses, will be positioned for the shift rather than displaced by it.
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