Empathy startup raises an additional $47 million
In the recent past I served as Board Chairman for a large Senior population health and living company for three years and as Chairman for a smaller home care and hospice company for about five years. All told, I’ve had over a dozen years of that leadership service in those industries.
What that has led me to believe is that there will be an intersection coming at some point in the future between Senior health and living, Death Care, and Grief Care. It’s not hard for me to envision home care and hospice companies expanding their field of services to eventually get into Death Care, especially grief and aftercare. . . . and Empathy may be a company that helps lead that transformation.
Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily
You can read in this article where startup Empathy, has recently raised another $47 million to bring the total capital raised by the company to $90 million. All of this to bring about the Empathy app which is “designed to help families navigate the logistical aspects of bereavement, including documentation, funeral or memorial arrangements, validating a will and other essentials” according to the article.
Exactly how Empathy does that is somewhat a mystique but if you go to their website they tell of their plan to help individuals “with step-by-step funeral planning so that everything falls into place”. In some shape or form I’m guessing that helps in selecting a funeral home or helping to plan arrangements.
Here’s what Ron Gura, Co-Founder and CEO of Empathy says in the linked article
- “Dealing with the loss of a loved one is one of life’s most challenging moments, yet there has been a problematic gap in the traditional support systems and benefits that barely touches on what families need. Empathy continues to set new standards for supporting families through grief and loss.”
So, I’m not so sure how Empathy will work but their website says that they will help with “funeral planning, navigating probate, and processing grief”. That’s a lot. . . . but a company that has raised about $90 million for those purposes will be heard from eventually.
Related Article — “Forging our path toward a compassionate economy”. From the Empathy blog written by Empathy CEO Ron Gura.
More news from the world of Death Care:
- The funeral industry has a shocking secret. inews.com (Great Britain)
- Hull funeral home inquiry: I spent US$ 3,300 on a fake funeral policy. BBC (Great Britain)
- Turning a human corpse into black gold: The greenest way to go? IFL Science Newsletter
- Riverside Cemetery again seeks water source for Lake Woodmere. Times-Republic (IA)
- Colorado funeral homes are working to regain trust amid string of high profile scandals. Colorado Public Radio (CO)
- The ultimate green burial? Human composting lets you replenish the earth after death. Voice article and print article. National Public Radi0
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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”
I find this interesting but not surprising. When I was a student at the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science in the mid-1980s one of my professors, the late Todd Van Beck, talked about how hospice would become a one stop shop for death care. In many ways it has, at least where I live. A hospice may not have a crematory or funeral home, many have a list of the local funeral homes with their pricing next to their name of the provider. Hospices already have chaplains on staff and with cremation being the preferred method of disposition services can be held any place. I wonder if these organ procurement companies who have so much influence on the legislators will be able to get the laws changed in their favor to offer cremation for families and bypass funeral homes altogether and add to what they provide. As Mr. Van Beck said on the first day of mortuary college the only permanent thing is change and I’ve witnessed that a lot in my almost 40 years in this great profession.