LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 26, 2026--
Origin, the AI native platform reshaping how global organisations manage employee benefits, today announced a $30 million Series A+ funding round. This brings the company’s total funding to over $50 million within twelve months. Origin helps organisations to manage one of the largest, least visible areas of workforce spend - global benefits. Its platform identifies inefficiencies, streamlines benefits operations and improves employee experience at scale.
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The Series A+ is led by Notion Capital, which also participated in Origin’s Series A round. Felix Capital, which led the Series A round, Acadian Ventures, and all existing investors are participating in the Series A+, reflecting their continued belief not only in the size of the opportunity, but in the team’s ability to execute quickly and deliver value to enterprise customers. The Series A+ round was raised at a higher valuation than the Series A. Alongside this, Origin has secured growth capital from HSBC Innovation Banking UK.
Origin was founded by the leadership team behind Darwin, the global benefits technology company acquired by Mercer in 2016. The Origin team founded the company with a clear mission: to enable organisations to optimise their second largest people cost.
Benefits have been left behind until now
For decades, global benefits have remained fragmented across countries, vendors, brokers, insurers, consultants, retirement providers, and point solutions. Information sits across PDFs, policies, renewals, vendor platforms and local documents in multiple languages. Origin's Benefits Intelligence report found that 20% of global benefits professionals at multinational organisations say it takes more than a month to answer, “What are our coverage limits and exclusions?”, and 20% say it takes more than a month to determine “Why has my benefit spend changed so much over the past 5 years?” The result is a system where organisations struggle to answer basic questions. What are we offering? What are we paying? What value are we getting? Where are we exposed? Where are we wasting money?
Origin addresses this with what it calls the first Enterprise Benefits Intelligence platform, a trusted system of record, insight, and action for global benefits, powered by AI.
Chris Bruce, Co-founder and CEO of Origin, said, “The biggest barrier in global benefits has always been the lack of a single source of truth. It is a problem we have been trying to solve for fifteen years, and it simply was not possible without AI. That is the unlock that makes it possible to digitise one of the most inefficient areas of enterprise spend. Benefits data is complex, scattered, inconsistent, and constantly changing, exactly the kind of problem AI can solve. Origin creates the first trusted source of truth for benefits information, giving organisations visibility into their total global spend for the first time, so they can optimise it, run benefits operations far more efficiently, and deliver a better experience to employees everywhere.”
Designed with the world’s most complex organisations
Origin’s platform has been co-created in partnership with a number of the world’s largest and most complex employers, including Pfizer, Comcast, and BP; organisations that manage benefits across dozens of countries, thousands of vendors and rapidly evolving compliance requirements.
As economic uncertainty continues and healthcare and risk costs rise across many markets, CFOs, CHROs and benefits teams face growing pressure to control spend while protecting employee experience. Where Origin is the platform, Cuido™ is Origin’s AI engine - the first-ever Artificial Benefits Intelligence™ purpose-built for global benefits.
Cuido ingests and structures fragmented data from policies, contracts, renewals, broker reports, vendor platforms, local documents and more, transforming unstructured information into a single, queryable system of record. Trained specifically on global benefits data and regulatory frameworks, it interprets complex policy language, maps coverage and cost structures across countries, and flags duplicated coverage, pricing inconsistencies, governance gaps and unmanaged renewals.
Unlike generic AI tools, Cuido is designed for the operational realities of multinational benefits. It does not simply summarise documents; it connects inventory, spend, risk and performance data to surface actionable insights. Origin sits at the centre of the global benefits operating cycle, managing renewals, vendor relationships, and governance workflows that run continuously across every market a client operates in. This enables leaders to identify inefficient or overlapping spend, rationalise vendors, simplify plan design and embed governance and automation into day-to-day operations.
The impact is measurable. An Origin client consolidated 13 local insurance policies into a single regional plan, achieving a 20% cost saving. By combining domain expertise with purpose-built AI, Origin gives executive teams clear answers to fundamental questions: what are we offering, what are we paying, and where are we exposed.
Investor conviction, deep domain expertise and proven execution
Andy Leaver, Operating Partner of Notion Capital, said, “We back teams with deep domain expertise and the ability to execute. Over the last 12 months, we have seen Origin move with exceptional speed, rapidly acquiring and delivering for complex global clients, while demonstrating a clear, differentiated product vision. We are doubling down because we believe Origin is building the defining platform in this category.”
“Benefits are one of the last major enterprise functions still left behind by the digitisation wave of the last 25 years. AI now makes it possible to build a true system of record and intelligence for benefits, and Origin is leading that shift.”
Antoine Nussenbaum, Co-Founder and Partner at Felix Capital, said, “From our first conversations with the Origin team, we were struck by the scale of the opportunity in global benefits. This is a market that is operationally complex, highly fragmented, and long overdue for transformation. We believe Origin is rebuilding the foundational infrastructure for the global benefits ecosystem, and delivering the benefits intelligence that organisations have been missing”,
“We are proud to continue to partner and support Origin in this next phase of growth, and we have strong conviction in their ability to define this category globally.”
Use of funds, employee experience, integrations, and partner platform
The Series A+ funding will be used to accelerate two major areas of the roadmap:
Jamie Fitt, SVP Growth and Partnerships at Origin, 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. Origin is strengthening the entire ecosystem so partners can move faster, be more strategic and deliver measurably better outcomes to their clients.”
Sydney MacGregor, Interim Head of Enterprise Software, HSBC Innovation Banking UK, said: “We are excited to support Origin on the next stage of its growth journey as it accelerates the delivery of its platform roadmap. This financing marks an important milestone in Origin’s mission to bring clarity, efficiency, and intelligence to a complex area of enterprise spend. We’re delighted to partner with venture-backed innovators like Origin, helping them as they build and achieve their ambitions.”
The future of benefits will be intelligence-led
Origin believes benefits will increasingly be run like other critical enterprise domains, governed, measurable, insight driven and automated.
About Origin
Origin is an AI native platform helping global organisations to cut benefits costs, create operational efficiency and deliver a superior employee experience. Origin is building the first Enterprise Benefits Intelligence platform, a trusted source of truth and insight that enables HR and finance leaders to understand, govern and optimise benefits across countries, vendors, and plan types.
Origin Co-founders, Chris Bruce and Pete Craghill
U.S. President Donald Trump issued a warning to Tehran on social media to “get serious soon” on negotiating a deal to end the war. The post comes a day after Trump said a deal to end the war is near, despite Tehran’s dismissal of his 15-point ceasefire plan.
Iran has been blocking ships it perceives as linked to the U.S. and Israeli war effort from the Strait of Hormuz, but it's letting a trickle of others through the crucial waterway. Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a bloc of six Gulf Arab nations, said Iran was charging for safe passage through the strait.
Meanwhile, the U.S. was preparing for the arrival of thousands of troops that could be used on the ground in Iran.
The death toll from the war has risen to more than 1,900 people in Iran and nearly 1,100 people in Lebanon, with dozens more killed in Israel and elsewhere in the region. Thirteen US. military members have died. Millions of people in Lebanon and Iran have been displaced.
Here is the latest:
Palestinians on Thursday mourned a man killed a day earlier during an attack by Israeli soldiers and settlers.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said it responded Wednesday to reports of beatings and tear gas. Witnesses told The Associated Press they’d been trying to return to the village of Umm al-Kheir but were blocked by a closed military gate and came under fire.
Israel’s military said a group of vehicles had fled a checkpoint and then lost control, veering off road. It said in a statement that forces fired warning shots in the air as part of an effort to apprehend those in the vehicles. It did not say whether anyone was apprehended.
Israel has erected hundreds of new military gates and checkpoints over the past two and a half years, as part of a broader effort that Palestinians say is to stifle their movement in the occupied West Bank. Violence — often fatal — has surged in the territory as attention and scrutiny has shifted elsewhere.
The president told his cabinet he plans to roll out a “variety” of policies “to support American farmers,” as the war with Iran has increased the cost of fertilizer during planting season.
Trump emphasized that he previously supported farmers by giving them $12 billion in aid when the agricultural sector faced blowback last year after his tariffs started a trade war.
The president, speaking at the start of a Thursday cabinet meeting, said he wanted to “set the record straight” that he isn’t the one pushing for a deal.
“They’re begging to make a deal, not me,” Trump said.
Iranian officials have denied that they’re negotiating with the U.S. as the war continues in its fourth week. Trump insisted they are.
“Anybody would know they’re talking,” he said. “They’re not fools, they’re very smart actually in a certain way. And they’re great negotiators. I say they’re lousy fighters but they’re great negotiators.”
Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi reiterated the group’s condemnation against the U.S.-Israel war against Iran, describing it as “unjustifiable,” and called for solidarity protests on Friday in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital.
During a lengthy televised speech posted on Telegram on Thursday, the Iran-backed Houthi leader said the Iran war destabilized the region and impacted the global economy, accusing the U.S. and Israel of ignoring such consequences.
Al-Houthi didn’t mention whether the armed rebel group would fight alongside Iran but said “any developments in the fight that necessitate a military response will be met with complete trust in God and reliance upon Him.”
“Our position is clear and unequivocal against America and Israel, and hold no hostile intentions towards any Muslim country,” he added.
Since the war began nearly a month ago, Houthis maintained their support for Iran through statements and protests, despite playing an active role in the Israel-Hamas war when they upended shipping in the Red Sea, through which about $1 trillion worth of goods passed each year before the war.
The stock market wavered Thursday as hopes for an end to the Iran war faded and oil prices surged, with the S&P 500 falling 0.4%, the Nasdaq dropping 0.6% and the Dow little changed. The moves were the latest in a week of volatile swings driven by shifting signals around ceasefire talks between the U.S. and Iran.
A barrel of Brent crude oil climbed 3.8% to $100.93 as hopes dimmed for a potential return to normal for the strait. That’s up from roughly $70 before the war began. Benchmark U.S. crude climbed 3% to $93.05 per barrel.
Rising energy prices have lifted oil and natural gas companies while worsening worries about inflation and weighing on sectors in which higher energy costs threaten to curb demand, including for steel and other industrial goods.
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Uganda’s top general threatened to join the widening war in the Middle East, warning “any talk of destroying or defeating Israel will bring us into the war. On the side of Israel!”
In a series of posts Thursday, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, chief of Uganda’s Defense Forces, said Uganda would be willing to come to Israel’s assistance if asked, citing the Bible as a basis for the deeply Christian East African nation’s support.
The country has a robust military known for campaigns against militias in Congo and for supplying troops to international forces, including in Somalia. Kainerugaba is known as Uganda’s “tweeting general” and was fired by his father, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, in 2022 over provocative posts about faraway wars.
Israel has in recent years attempted to expand its economic inroads in East Africa, including in Somaliland, a breakaway territory in the Horn of Africa, across the Gulf of Aden from Houthi-controlled Yemen. Israel developed an alliance with Uganda decades ago when its early leaders sought allies outside the Middle East.
The Iran war has deflected global attention from Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor Ukraine as Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II enters its fifth year and an emboldened Kremlin undertakes a spring offensive.
The past week showed neither side is easing up. Russia on Tuesday fired almost 1,000 drones and 34 missiles at Ukraine in one of the war’s biggest bombardments. The following day Ukraine launched almost 400 drones in the largest reported overnight attack on Russian regions and Crimea.
Ukraine’s fate is still Europe’s top foreign policy issue, fueled by fears that Moscow has wider ambitions. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has wound down talks with Russian and Ukrainian delegations as the Iran war grips its attention. The administration has warned it could turn its back on the conflict if peace efforts come to nothing.
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Iran’s internet shutdown is badly hurting many businesses, as well as limiting access to news of the war inside the country. A designer in her mid-twenties says her fashion products company is “on the verge of closing” as online sales have ground to a halt.
She added a nearby strike had damaged her apartment in central Tehran. Speaking on condition of anonymity, she shared with The Associated Press a photo of her street showing it filled with debris and broken glass from the blast wave.
She said she had gone to stay at her parents' house where she felt safer.
“I don’t leave the house much except to buy necessities. The checkpoints are still in place and every night, a few supporters of the government hold rallies throughout the city. To be honest, I don’t dare go near the damaged or dangerous areas,” she added, referring to security checkpoints set up across the capital.
Iran has repeatedly restricted internet access since security forces shot thousands of anti-government protesters in early January. Rampant inflation has also throttled the economy. The designer said she has been forced to live on her small savings.
“I think we’ve experienced everything bad possible. We’ve seen it all, from the terrible atmosphere of January and the killings and arrests to the war.”
— Amir-Hussein Radjy
The vast majority of Republicans in the AP-NORC poll, 81%, say it’s “extremely” or “very” important for the U.S. to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, lending support to one of the goals Trump has articulated since the war began. But only about half of Republicans see replacing Iran’s government with leaders who are more friendly to the U.S. as a high priority.
Stephen Hauss, 40, is a state Agriculture Department employee in Camden, Delaware, where he manages environmental programs. Hauss described his political views as libertarian-leaning, and he voted for Trump in 2024. But the start of the Iran war has changed his views about the president.
“Before the war I was just kind of like, ‘OK, like, I voted for him. I got to give him, like, some benefit of the doubt,’” he said.
Now, Hauss said he can’t support the U.S. trying to change the leadership of another country. He added, “I don’t think I am on board with this anymore.”
About three-quarters of Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of the presidency, and a similar 70% approve of how he’s handling Iran.
Many Republicans continue to have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of trust in the president to make the right decisions on foreign issues. About half place a high level of trust in him when it comes to the use of military force outside the U.S. Roughly the same percentage of Republicans have a high level of trust on his dealings with adversaries and allies.
Sharon Fuller, 68, is a firm backer of the president and approves of his handling of the job, as well as the war in Iran.
A retired hospital analyst from Ocklawaha, Florida, Fuller expressed some reservations about the war but called Trump a “huge patriot” and said she’s been impressed with how the stock market has done since he became president again.
“I don’t really agree with the war, but on the other hand, I think it’s a necessity at this point,” she said.
Oil depots spewing black smoke. Debris sinking in the Persian Gulf. Missiles pounding military sites.
The Iran war has unleashed a toxic mix of chemicals, heavy metals and other pollutants that threaten everything from agriculture to drinking water to people’s health — and will leave behind environmental damage and health risks that could persist for decades, experts said.
“All the burning of oil and gas fields in the coastal areas, all the ships that are there, the oil tankers that are being burned or (sunk) — all of these mean pollution,” said Kaveh Madani, an Iranian scientist and director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health. “For someone like me who has fought for sustainability and protection of the environment in that region, this is like going many years backward.”
Documenting the damage has proved daunting, with a full accounting impossible for now, said Doug Weir, director of the Conflict and Environment Observatory, a U.K.-based nonprofit that monitors environmental harms from armed conflicts.
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It’s costing more and more to gas up the hot rods Donnie Beson has spent a lifetime tinkering with. He’s not questioning his support for Trump, but he feels as though the war in Iran has distracted the Republican president from the issues that got him elected.
“Come on, Trump. Worry about us,” said Beson, 68, of Woodland Park, Colorado. “We’re in a billion-dollar-a-day war. It’s like, ‘Man, you forgot about the other stuff, and you got to take care of that first.’”
Trump still has deep support among Republicans, but a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research indicates the president risks frustrating his voters during a midterm election year if the United States gets involved in the kind of prolonged war in the Middle East that he promised to avoid.
Although 63% of Republicans back airstrikes against Iranian military targets, the survey found, only 20% back deploying American ground troops.
Rising gas prices could also pose a problem for Trump. The cost of oil and gas has soared since the Iran war began nearly four weeks ago, adding more financial pressure when many Americans are already worried about affording essentials.
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Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty met Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Beirut on Thursday amid a swirl of diplomatic discussions about the Iran war.
Abdelatty said that, in shuttling messages between Iran and the United States, Egypt has noted a mutual “desire for calm, for the exploration of negotiations” on both sides. But he warned the talks have not yielded “specific conclusions.”
When asked about Egypt’s role in mediating between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, he told reporters that Egyptian diplomats were voicing to all parties their opposition to Israeli occupation and destruction of civilian infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
He said the goal was to prevent the region “from sinking into a state of chaos from which it cannot emerge.”
The Israeli military says Behnam Rezaei was a “central knowledge authority in maritime intelligence.”
Earlier Thursday, Israel said it had killed the commander of Iran’s navy, Alireza Tangsiri, in an overnight airstrike in Bandar Abbas. Israel said Tangsiri had been responsible for bombing operations that blocked the Strait of Hormuz.
But Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry did not confirm whether direct talks would take place in Islamabad later this week.
At a weekly news briefing, ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said details on the timing, venue and itinerary would be shared in due course. Asked whether Iranian or U.S. delegations were expected to hold talks in Islamabad later this week, he said, “We will let you know when these developments take place.”
He added that Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts are aimed at ending the conflict and emphasized that the initiative is not directed against any country.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, residents say they’re increasingly confronting missile debris after it’s intercepted by Israel’s air defenses. Debris was reported Wednesday and Thursday, including in Silwad, Ramallah and Beitin as well as in Israeli settlements.
Palestinians in the West Bank lack the siren alerts and shelter infrastructure that most of Israel has relied on to limit wartime fatalities, leaving communities exposed to missiles and debris. In Beitin, Bahjat Mousa Haj said he heard a boom and later learned through social media that debris had fallen nearby Thursday morning. Nobody was killed. Emergency crews tended to the missile fragment’s husk in a nearby field.
Last week, shrapnel struck a beauty salon near Hebron, killing four women. Despite the dangers, bystanders have filmed interceptions and gathered around the fallen fragments and scorched casings, drawn by a mix of curiosity and disbelief.
Wall Street followed global markets lower and oil prices jumped above $100 per barrel Thursday as a de-escalation of the Iran war appeared further out of reach.
Futures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average each fell 0.7% before the opening bell. Nasdaq futures lost 0.8%.
Iran and the United States hardened their positions as a diplomatic push for a ceasefire in the Middle East war appeared to falter Thursday, sending oil prices back up.
Brent crude, the international standard, rose 3.4% to $100.61 per barrel. It was below $95 on Wednesday. Benchmark U.S. crude was 3.2% higher at $93.25 a barrel.
The rise in oil prices lifted shares of energy producers such as ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy, though the gains were modest at about 1%.
President Trump has said a deal to end the Iran war is near, even after Tehran dismissed his 15-point ceasefire plan.
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The Philippines has received a shipment of Russian crude oil as the country scrambled to secure fuel from non-traditional sources to boost its buffer amid global price spikes, Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said Thursday.
More than 700,000 barrels of Russian crude oil has been received by Petron Corp., the country’s only refiner, this week, Garin told The Associated Press.
She didn’t elaborate but said a second Russian oil shipment bound for the Philippines, a longtime treaty ally of the United States, has been finalized.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared a state of national energy emergency Tuesday to brace for the impact of the Middle East hostilities which his administration said posed “an imminent danger of a critically low energy supply.”
Marcos later said the Philippines has more than a month of fuel stockpiled and there was no need for people to panic.
Frigid temperatures have lingered into spring in Gaza, where the flow of humanitarian aid remains limited and the Iran war has set back progress on last year’s phased ceasefire.
Tareq Hamouda, a man displaced from Jabaliya, told The Associated Press that the tent where he and his daughters live has collapsed five times since they moved there.
“No matter how prepared we are, it’s still just a tent,” he said from Gaza City.
Muddy waters coursed through displacement camps in Gaza City and Khan Younis, where many residents faced soaked mattresses and flooded floors inside their waterlogged tents.
Aid groups say broken infrastructure and inconsistent electricity have turned untreated sewage into a growing public health risk in the territory.
An Iranian health official says the death toll from the war in Iran has reached at least 1,937 people.
Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Ali Jafarian gave the figure to the pan-Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera on Thursday. He said 240 of the dead were women and 212 were children.
More than 24,800 others have been wounded so far, he added.
Iran has not offered any official death toll figures in days.
The booms could be heard in Tel Aviv, the central Israel city of Modiin and Jerusalem after the Israeli military warned of another wave of incoming missiles from Iran.
The barrage is the eighth such wave launched at Israel on Thursday.
Members of a family, who fled Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, sit around a bonfire outside a tent used as a shelter in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Pro-government supporters chant slogans and wave Iranian flags during a rally, in a square in western Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People take cover in a bomb shelter as air raid sirens warn of incoming Iranian missile strikes in Bnei Brak, Israel, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Smoke and flames rise following an Israeli military strike on a target in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, March, 25, 2026.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Members of the displaced Abd el-Hajj family, and two of their cousins, right, who fled Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, sit inside a tent used as a shelter in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Members of a family, who fled Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, sit around a bonfire outside a tent used as a shelter in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Pro-government supporters chant slogans and wave Iranian flags during a rally, in a square in western Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
