In a profession that many — ok, most — people deem traditional, startups seem to be clamoring to be the big disruptor — the business that finally shakes things up and changes “the way things have always been done.” Sometimes, they succeed; often, they don’t. However, it always helps when they’ve won the support and substantial financial backing of wealthy investors.
Crunchbase, a platform that gathers interesting information about all sorts of companies, recently compiled a list of those involved in “innovation and investment around death and end-of-life planning” which have raised significant amounts of funding over the past few years. This list includes companies that have received equity funding of just under $2 million all the way up to nearly $80 million.
The top 10
Here are the top 10 funded startups related to death and estate planning, according to Crunchbase, along with their funding amounts (in millions):
- Better Place Forests ($79.8) – memorial spreading forests for cremated remains
- Trust & Will ($48) – digital estate planning and probate platform
- Wealth.com ($46) – digital estate planning platform for wealth management firms
- Freewill ($30) – digital philanthropy and estate planning for donors and fundraisers
- Inmemori ($21.3) – a “virtual time capsule”
- After.com ($20) – direct cremation company serving six states in the western U.S.
- Meanwhile ($19) – Bitcoin-dominated life insurance
- OpusXenta ($13) – cemetery and crematory management software
- Earth ($10) – provider of natural organic reduction
- Luminary ($9.5) – digital estate planning
If you’re noticing a theme here, you’re not alone. Crunchbase also recognized that eco-friendly disposition, online estate planning, and digital tools to simplify or streamline the business of deathcare dominated the top 10 this year. The next ten include companies with similar offerings, including GoodTrust, Safewill, and Willed (all digital estate planning tools), Eirene (direct cremation arranged by app), and Catrina, Aura, and The Farewell Guide (online platforms for end-of-life planning).
The only “outlier” in the top 20 best-funded companies seems to be Parting Stone, which transforms cremated remains into solidified form and, frankly, belongs in its own category. Also, along with Better Place, Earth, and Return Home, Parting Stone offers a tangible, non-digital, product or service.
Top takeaways
If this list of companies in which wealthy investors have entrusted their cash is any indication, the future of deathcare is digital. Not only that, it’s focused on end-of-life and estate planning … which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. By simplifying the process of preparing for death, perhaps more people will take that step, and surely (hopefully) include their designation and perhaps prepayment of their funeral and/or disposition choices in their plan.
Crunchbase predicts that “many startups will struggle to penetrate a tradition-bound sector like the funeral industry, which isn’t known for speediness in adapting to change.” That could explain two interesting facts about these lists.
First, Eirene, the cremation app that claimed the #17 spot on the list, is now defunct, despite recently raising $3 million. The Toronto-based company virtually disappeared in July, shutting down its website and terminating its license with the Bereavement Authority of Ontario, leaving no signs that it was acquired or merged.
The second curiosity related to this list is found when comparing it to who made the list in 2020, which was the last time Crunchbase explored deathcare startups. Four years ago, Better Place Forests was also on top, followed by Aura, Farewill, Cake, and Eterneva. This year, Aura dropped out of the top 10, and Farewill (a digital will-writing service that has since expanded into funeral services) didn’t crack the top 20. Eterneva didn’t make the 2024 list — maybe because its 2021 funds infusion by Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban helped it become self-sufficient. Similarly, Cake, a successful and growing digital planning service, was just acquired by Foundation Partners.
If this four-year comparison is any indication, investors are still quite keen on cremation innovation, earth-friendly ideas, and digital planning tools — and they’ve attracted the attention of much bigger fish.
