Origin raises $30m to show multinationals what their benefits cost

On 25 March Origin, a London company whose software shows multinational employers what benefits they offer and pay for in each country, announced a $30m (£22m) Series A+ round led by Notion Capital. Felix Capital, which led the company’s Series A, joined with Acadian Ventures and all of Origin’s existing investors, and HSBC Innovation Banking provided growth capital. The round, as first reported by Fortune, was raised at a higher valuation than the Series A, the company says, and takes its total funding past $50m (£37m) in 12 months.

Notion Capital described the deal as “doubling down on our Series A investment nine months ago”. Origin says it will spend the money in two places: deeper integrations with the human capital management (HCM) systems where employees already work, and a partner platform for brokers, consultants, insurers, retirement plan providers and point solutions.

Broker reports are among the documents Origin’s AI engine reads for an employer, according to the announcement, and when the company launched in May 2025 Tech.eu reported that the engine analyzed contracts, allowances, commissions and vendor relationships. The intermediaries Origin now wants as partners are also among the costs it shows its clients.

The Series A+ pays for Origin to move from a product that a handful of very large employers helped design to a layer that the benefits trade itself plugs into. How many brokers and consultants accept a platform that puts their charges in front of the client will decide how far Origin reaches beyond its anchor customers.

A second run at the same market

Chris Bruce, Origin’s co-founder and CEO, has spent more than two decades in benefits software. He co-founded Thomsons Online Benefits with Michael Whitfield in 1999. Its Darwin platform was used in 84 countries by more than a million users when Mercer bought the company for an undisclosed sum, Consultancy.uk reported in January 2017.

Origin says it was founded by “the leadership team behind Darwin”. Pete Craghill, the other co-founder, is its CTO. According to The Next Web, the idea came out of a 2023 conversation between the two, and the first 18 months went on getting benefits data into the system. Companies House records show Origin Benefits Ltd was incorporated on 22 March 2024. Bruce and Craghill became directors that August and are both registered as people with significant control, Bruce with more than half of the shares.

Bruce said in the announcement that the lack of a single source of truth had always been the biggest barrier in global benefits: “It is a problem we have been trying to solve for fifteen years, and it simply was not possible without AI.”

The company came out of stealth on 14 May 2025 with a $21m (£16m) Series A led by Felix Capital, at a $106m (£78m) valuation, according to its launch release. Notion Capital and Acadian Ventures also invested, along with angels including Paul Daugherty, formerly CTO of Accenture, and Tudor Havriliuc, formerly vice-president of HR at Meta.

What multinational employers get from it

Cuido, Origin’s AI engine, takes in policies, contracts, renewals, broker reports, vendor platforms and local documents, often in several languages, and turns them into a single record that can be queried. It flags duplicated coverage, pricing inconsistencies, governance gaps and unmanaged renewals, the company says.

The platform was co-created with employers including Pfizer, Comcast and BP, which run benefits across dozens of countries. The 2025 launch release also named EA and Boston Consulting Group. At launch, Amy Manning, senior director of global retirement and international benefits at Pfizer, said a project that would have taken about six months took two weeks with Origin. The company says one client consolidated 13 local insurance policies into a single regional plan and saved 20%.

Andy Leaver, operating partner at Notion Capital, said in the announcement that benefits had been left behind by the digitization wave of the past 25 years, adding: “AI now makes it possible to build a true system of record and intelligence for benefits, and Origin is leading that shift.”

Brokers as partners and as line items

Jamie Fitt, Origin’s senior vice-president of growth and partnerships, said: “This investment allows us to expand the functionality that helps our partners deliver superior value to clients through new efficiencies, AI-enabled tools and a future-proofed operating layer for benefits.”

The partners named in the announcement are the same intermediaries whose reports and charges Cuido reads on the employer’s behalf. Origin is asking brokers and consultants to work with a product that its customers use to see what they pay across vendors, and that one client used to replace 13 local policies with one.

Origin has raised more than $50m in 12 months. Its next stage of growth depends on whether brokers and consultants agree to run their clients’ data through a system built to show those clients what the advice costs.