Is Bereavement Care Going High Tech?

As hospice and palliative care providers seek ways to engage patients and families further upstream, a small but growing cadre of entrepreneurs has been building solutions for needs that emerge downstream — when families are navigating the aftermath of a loved one’s death.

Bereaved families must cope not only with grief, but necessary tasks such as funeral planning, account cancellations, legalities and financial arrangements. This often requires hundreds of hours of work and thousands of dollars, which many families are unprepared to handle without additional support.

“Grief is made harder by logistics and logistics are made harder by grief,” Ron Gura, co-founder and CEO of the bereavement care tech platform Empathy, told Hospice News. “If you need to get up in the morning and call Amazon to delete your partner’s name, call the [U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs], arrange a ceremony, work with Social Security, IRAs, pensions, property brokers, probate court, it just makes things worse.”

Empathy, an app designed to help reduce these burdens, rose to prominence in April 2021 when it secured $13 million in seed money, with the venture capital firms General Catalyst and Aleph as the lead investors.

The Empathy application is designed to help families navigate the logistical aspects of bereavement, including documentation, funeral or memorial arrangements, validating a will and other concerns.

“The end-of-life industry is a large sector that has been untouched by the wave of digital transformation occurring in every other industry,” said Joel Cutler, co-founder and managing director at General Catalyst. “Empathy is unique in that it addresses both the emotional and logistical anguish of loss.”

A New Marketplace Emerges

It soon became clear that a sizable market existed for this technology. Before the year was out, Empathy raised an additional $30 million in Series A funds, led by Entrée Capital, with participation from General Catalyst and Aleph.

Fast Company magazine also selected Empathy as one of its “Most Innovative Companies with Fewer Than 100 Employees,” and it was named one of the “Best Apps of the Year” by Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL].

In addition bringing a gaggle of Fortune 100 companies to its list of clients, Empathy also forged partnerships with Compassus, one of the 10 largest hospice providers in the United States, and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).

The NHPCO partnership allows members of the nation’s largest hospice industry trade group to offer a co-branded version of the app to families in mourning.

Compassus, after a three-month pilot, began making the Empathy app available to families throughout its footprint, which spans more than 200 locations in 30 states.

Compassus intends to use the solution to augment their existing bereavement care services.

“There is always the grief and loss that people experience, but also the hard realities that many families aren’t prepared for,” Compassus Chairman Jim Deal told Hospice News when the partnership was announced. “We hope that this Empathy program is an opportunity to be additive to the things we already do.”

The burden on families is severe. Recent research from Empathy found that families spend as many as 500 hours over as long as 13 months completing administrative tasks related to their loved one’s death.

The average cost to the bereaved exceeds $12,000, Empathy found. These factors also cause stress that can complicate grief, as well as adversely affect family members’ health and job performance.

An Upstart Startup Enters the Ring

While Empathy had a head start, the company is not the only tech platform working to address this issue.

Austin-based Betterleave Bereavement began operations just weeks ago at the tail end of March,with backing from the investment firms HR Leaders, Strive Ventures, Math Venture Partners, and The Fund.

Betterleave’s bereavement care platform is designed as a benefit that companies can offer their employees who have lost a loved one, a pregnancy or a pet.

Betterleave offers employees access to care coordinators, death care experts, products and services designed to reduce the burden that accompany those losses. This includes assistance with personalized funeral, memorial and estate coordination, life and financial planning, and integrated grief resources

The platform is a win-win for workers and employers, according to Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Albert Swantner.

For employees, Betterleave offers additional support in a time of need. This, the company asserts, has the potential to reduce absenteeism and restore lost productivity more quickly.

The platform also allows the employer to demonstrate concern for the employee’s well-being, giving them an incremental advantage in a tight labor market, Swantner told Hospice News.

“There’s this war for talent, and so any small edge that you can offer means a lot,” Swantner said. “Just in case these tragic things happen to you, this company is going to have you covered. That means something to employees today, and so we anticipate pretty quick growth over this year.” 

In addition to leading Betterleave, Swantner and Co-Founder and CEO Cara McCarty are partners in The Fund, a micro venture capital firm that is among the startup’s early backers.

The company is expecting a second financing round later this year.

The Fund is part of an “ecosystem” of more than 500 startup founders, Andy Ambrose, a partner in the firm told Hospice News.

Ambrose first became acquainted with Swantner and McCarty during a series of networking events, and the three “hit it off tremendously,” according to Ambrose.

This meeting of minds built the launchpad that got Betterleave off the ground.

“This is really a very compelling play as a new modern, cutting-edge benefit, filling a void. To keep my best people, I’ve got to offer a more robust package of benefits,” Ambrose told Hospice News. “Secondly, this is at the crossroads of an archaic industry which is really overdue for a change in the way that consumers make choices about the end of life.”