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The bereavement care tech startup Empathy has secured $47 million in a Series B funding round led by Index Ventures.
Other participating investors include General Catalyst, Entrée Capital, Latitude, and Brewer Lane, Allianz, MassMutual Ventures, MetLife (NYSE: MET), New York Life Ventures, Securian Financial and Sumitomo.
The Empathy app is designed to help families navigate the logistical aspects of bereavement, including documentation, funeral or memorial arrangements, validating a will and other essentials. These tasks often require hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars, for which many families are unprepared.
“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,” said Ron Gura, Co-Founder and CEO of Empathy, in a statement. “We are honored to provide help in a sustainable, scalable way by working with employers and insurance carriers to become the new standard for modern benefits. Embracing empathy in the workplace is good for families, good for business, and good for our society as a whole.”
Empathy launched in 2021 with an app designed to help reduce the burden on grieving families and provide additional layers of emotional support.
The burden on grieving families is often severe. They can spend as many as 500 hours over as many as 13 months completing administrative tasks related to their loved one’s death, according to the Cost of Dying Report, published by Empathy. The average cost to the bereaved exceeds $12,000.
The company’s clients and partners include a number of hospice providers, including Compassus, one of the 10 largest hospice providers in the United States, as well as the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO). Other clients include insurance companies like MetLife, as well as a range of employers offering the service as a benefit.
Currently, through its clients and partners, more than 5 million employees and 35 million policyholders have access to the app.
In April 2021, Empathy secured $13 million in seed money, with the venture capital firms General Catalyst and Aleph as the lead investors. Empathy went on to raise an additional $30 million in subsequent funding rounds.
The new Series B round brings Empathy’s total capital raised to $90 million, which the company will use to expand to cover new industries and regions.
“Empathy’s approach to grief and loss support is defining the emerging compassionate economy, built around anticipating the needs of employees outside of work,” said Danny Rimer, partner at Index Ventures, in a statement. “Empathy stands at the forefront, integrating heartfelt support into the employee journey with a solution that helps businesses and insurance carriers of all sizes to invest in their human capital and do better for all.”
