Ex-BenchSci exec joins Terminal as COO

Toronto-based, Y Combinator-backed Terminal has made its first chief operating officer (COO) hire as the telematics startup prepares to move from startup to scaleup status.

Eran Ben-Ari is joining the startup after working since 2021 as chief platform officer, and later COO, at Toronto-based life sciences scaleup BenchSci.

Ben-Ari plans to bring his experience leading company growth to Terminal as it reaches an “inflection point” in its trajectory.

Before BenchSci, Ben-Ari had a long history in tech. He served as chief product officer at messaging app Kik after his Israel-based company Rounds was acquired, and then moved to chief product officer at Top Hat.

In an interview with BetaKit, Ben-Ari said he’s planning to bring his experience leading companies’ growth phases as Terminal reaches what he calls an “inflection point” in its trajectory.

“I think this is truly one of those situations where the company is punching way above its weight in a positive sense,” Ben-Ari said.

He added that he plans to focus on helping scale Terminal “the right way,” by balancing diligence in process and operations while calibrating go-to-market efforts, as well as research and development.

During his time at BenchSci, Ben-Ari oversaw the company’s efforts to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into its drug discovery platform, which is used at large pharmaceutical companies. The company cut 23 percent of staff earlier this year as its CEO signalled a shift to becoming an “AI-first company.” Its director of product, Nim Fox, also left the company in July.

Terminal, which graduated from Y Combinator in 2023, was co-founded in 2022 by CEO Raghav Midha and CTO Connor Giles. It offers a universal application programming interface (API) to connect insurance products and fleet software with telematics data, like location and speed. Ben-Ari said that Terminal’s product, which harmonizes data from several sources, solves a “big pain point” for insurance and logistics companies managing vehicle fleets.

Raghav said the 13-person startup has focused on perfecting its product, rather than chasing growth, since completing Y Combinator and raising a seed round. While he did not share details on revenue, Midha claimed that the company has landed Fortune 500 and publicly traded companies as clients.

Midha said the company is hiring more software engineers to work out of its new Toronto office. He added that Terminal considered relocating to the United States after YC, but ultimately decided to build the company in Toronto.

“We felt that our networks were here,” Midha said. “We wanted to tap into Canada having fantastic product engineering talent.”

Feature image courtesy Terminal.