Origin secures $30 million in Series A+ funding.

      The London-based startup, established by the team that created Darwin and was acquired by Mercer in 2016, has developed an AI platform that consolidates fragmented global benefits data from PDFs, insurance contracts, and vendor portals into a cohesive intelligence layer. Notion Capital led the funding round, with additional growth financing from HSBC Innovation Banking UK.

      One CFO informed Origin's CEO that he estimated his company was spending approximately $750 million annually on employee benefits but lacked a method to verify that figure. He mentioned that benefits represented the only significant budget category he couldn't clearly track.

      Given that benefits typically rank as a company's second-largest expense after payroll, this lack of transparency is systemic: benefits data within a multinational organization is scattered across insurance policies in various languages, broker reports, vendor portals, renewal documents, and local contracts in each country where the business operates.

      No one has managed to integrate all this information. Origin, the London-based HR technology startup, has secured $30 million, arguing that AI now enables this integration.

      The Series A+ round, announced today, was spearheaded by Notion Capital, which had also supported the company’s initial Series A. Felix Capital, which led that previous round in May 2025, and Acadian Ventures are once again participating along with all other existing investors.

      HSBC Innovation Banking UK has also provided additional growth financing along with the equity raise. This new funding brings Origin's total capital to over $50 million raised in less than twelve months, following the $21 million Series A announced in May 2025 at a valuation of $106 million.

      Origin was co-founded by Chris Bruce, CEO, and Pete Craghill, CTO; the same duo that developed Thomsons Online Benefits, later rebranded as Darwin, which held an 80% share of the global benefits administration market outside the US at the time of its acquisition by Mercer in December 2016.

      The concept for Origin emerged from a discussion in 2023 between the two founders, where they realized that advancements in large language models had finally made it feasible to tackle a problem they had tried and failed to solve fifteen years earlier.

      The company dedicated its initial eighteen months to the challenging task of data ingestion. According to Craghill, benefits data is not only unstructured, but also extremely inconsistent in format, language, and completeness across different regions. Understanding how to evaluate the quality of source materials before relying on the results was essential for all subsequent efforts.

      The platform’s AI engine, named Cuido, transforms policies, contracts, renewals, broker reports, and vendor platform data into a centralized intelligence layer that benefits and HR teams can access in real time. Origin is making a straightforward commercial case: the CFO who believed he was spending $750 million on benefits now anticipates saving approximately $75 million by utilizing the platform.

      In another instance, a client was able to consolidate 13 local insurance policies into a single regional plan, achieving a 20% cost reduction. The platform was co-developed with key clients such as Pfizer, Comcast, BP, and the Boston Consulting Group, who served as paying partners from the start and helped inform the product's development road map.

      Notion Capital's choice to lead this round after participating in the Series A indicates confidence in the company's execution speed. Andy Leaver, the firm’s operating partner, highlighted that the company has acted swiftly in acquiring and serving complex global clients while creating a distinct product vision.

      The new funding will primarily focus on two areas: enhancing integration with human capital management systems, allowing employees to access benefits information through the tools they already use at work, and expanding the partner ecosystem for brokers, insurers, and consultants servicing the same multinational clients.