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A new digital companion application helping families navigate the logistical and emotional journey of losing a loved one launched this week with $13 million in seed funding. Called Empathy, the company is backed by the round’s leading investors General Catalyst and Aleph.
Empathy’s platform leads grieving families through end-of-life bureaucratic tasks such as arranging a funeral, validating a will, canceling accounts and cleaning out properties. It also has a human support element where loss experts are available to provide emotional and practical advice. It’s the inherent optimism of human nature that causes us to avoid talking about death,” Ron Gura, the cofounder and CEO of Empathy, said in a statement. But because we don’t discuss it, we miss out on important opportunities to innovate and provide families with technology that can help them manage some of life’s most challenging mo