Riding Unicorns: Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Technology · Riding Unicorns Productions

Ben Freeman, Co-Founder & CEO at Omnea on Building an AI Native Procurement Platform, Talent Density, and Founder Paranoia

January 28, 2026·39 min·5 clips

Omnia starts with a procurement accident. Ben's route into the company runs through Tessian, where he joined before the seed round, moved to New York, and helped build and run the US business. It was not a straight founder story. Before venture backed software, he ran an events business in Manchester, left university for it, spent time in investment banking, and got a rougher education in building from zero. The host keeps pulling the conversation away from glossy vision talk and back toward how the company actually works. They talk about when to ship, how fast to move, and what has to be true before a customer can get value. Ben is not anti-speed. He just pushes back on the lazy version of it: shipping before the product can make the customer successful. From there, talent density takes over. The host mentions friends at Omnia and asks what the phrase means inside the company. Ben answers plainly. Omnia ran more than 10,000 interviews for its first 50-ish roles, which says a lot about the bar. The hiring screen leans hard on grit, perseverance, and whether someone keeps going when the work gets ugly. Skills matter, but they are not the whole filter. Ben says Omnia tends to hire more for traits, looking for people who care deeply about career, success, impact, and who can knowingly choose more sacrifice than normal. The candid part is that he does not sell this as a lifestyle hack. Easier lives exist. The fit has to be mutual. Omnia is moving fast, but the episode keeps coming back to discipline: know what the customer needs, protect the hiring bar, and be honest about the cost.

As heard by us

A founder interview about hiring hard, shipping carefully, and staying disciplined under scale pressure.

Ben Freeman's conversation on Riding Unicorns focuses on the less polished side of building Omnia: the procurement lesson he picked up at Tessian, why it drew him to the company, and what three and a half years of work looks like while the business keeps changing.

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Why you'd press play

You want a straight founder story about building, hiring, and shipping under pressure.

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