Happl, the London- and New York-based provider of an AI-native employee-benefits platform for multinational employers, has raised $11m in a Series A round.

The round was led by Portage Ventures, with participation from F Capital and continued backing from Y Combinator, 6 Degrees Capital, Haatch, and Ventures Together. The investment will be used to accelerate product development and to expand the company's UK and US teams.

Founded in 2022 by CEO Ben Towers, Happl positions itself as a global benefits operating system. The platform combines a configurable rules engine with HRIS and payroll integrations and intelligent automation aimed at replacing the country-by-country processes that multinational employers typically run through spreadsheets, brokers, and manual work.

The company says it already operates across more than 160 countries and supports customers including Moelis, Kainos, and Hootsuite.

Happl said the funding will be deployed across five product priorities: deeper AI integration in its rules engine, real-time workflows that build on the more than one million HRIS data changes the platform already syncs each month, proactive compliance support for new markets, self-serve benefits-operations tools, and an MCP server that lets customers connect Happl data to Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini.

Hélène Falchier, partner at Portage, described Happl in a statement as a benefits operating system “built for global complexity, not retrofitted into it.”

Falchier cited the company's enterprise traction and the breadth of compliance-heavy workflows on the platform as the factors behind the firm's decision to lead the Series A.

Towers said in the company's announcement that the round was about partner selection as much as capital. “Series A isn't just capital. It's the partners you choose for the next stretch of the build.”

He said Portage's relationships across Europe, North America, and the Middle East fit the company's expansion plans.

Happl is regulated in the UK as an Appointed Representative of The Right Mortgage Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The company holds ISO certification and is GDPR-compliant. Headquarters are in London with a US office in New York.

Brex, Happl's US banking partner, gave the company a Times Square advertisement slot to mark the announcement.

Happl has not disclosed revenue figures or its post-money valuation. The company said it will release further hiring details in the coming weeks.