The start-ups breathing new life into the funeral business

The business of death hasn't changed much for centuries. Photo / Getty Images

Anthony Johnson may only be 27, but this year he made the decision to write his will.

As a nurse for the NHS in the UK, he is at high-risk of catching coronavirus which has been linked to the deaths of more than 600 health and social care workers in Britain. Johnson felt he had to prepare for the worst.

"As professionals, I'd say we've not been protected and it's almost been like we've been walking around naked."

He is far from alone. This year, swathes of Britons have raced to put in place end-of-life plans, spurred on by anxiety over Covid-19. In the past, this would have likely involved a trip to the solicitors, perhaps a discussion with family members and the setting up of a small savings pot.

But, increasingly, this is starting to change. Many are now looking at alternative options - dragging a market which is worth at least £2bn and which, for years, has been described as outdated into the 21st century.

One of the most significant changes has been the rise of online wills. For years, demand has been steadily increasing for virtual services, but this year there has been a "huge uptick", according to Dan Garrett, founder and chief executive of Farewill.

In 2020, the company saw a 212 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of people writing a will with them. Among millennials, the spike was even greater, with a 12-fold increase in under 35s writing their wills in April.

And it is not just virtual wills they are after. Demand for Farewill's "direct cremations" service, where a family is not present for the cremation and then receives the ashes later, has ballooned this year.

The pandemic has "probably accelerated the digital transformation of the funeral world by five years - and that's not me exaggerating," Garrett says.

The opportunity had already attracted the attention of investors. According to figures from PitchBook, £330m was invested into companies in the "death and bereavement" space last year. This year, whilst more broadly across the tech sector deal-flow has slowed, the number of VC investments into end-of-life start-ups remained steady.

Highland Europe, a backer of Farewill, says many have seen it as a sector ripe for disruption. "It's an industry that hasn't really evolved for centuries, and, frankly, has been overcharging customers at a time when they're in pain," says partner Stan Laurent.

The cost of death has been mounting every year, hitting a record high in 2020, with Sunlife estimating that funeral costs have risen by 62 per cent in the last decade. But, it is not just rising prices that are driving innovation in this space.

The environmental impact is something entrepreneurs in the field have been attempting to tackle for some time.

Past efforts to find solutions have met with hurdles. The process of resomation, for example, where bodies are broken down using water, has been held up by regulation, whilst uptake of 'promession', where bodies are freeze-dried and vibrated into powder, has been slow.

This could soon change. Increasingly, millennials have been logging their interest for what are known as "green burials". Coeio's "mushroom suit", for example, claims to be able to cleanse bodies of toxins that are released into the environment, and recently received attention for having been used for the burial of former Beverly Hills 90210 star Luke Perry.

Other companies have marketed themselves around the idea of giving back to nature, including BioUrn, a Spanish start-up which places ashes into biodegradable urns that can be planted for trees or shrubs to sprout from them. BioUrn's Annie Lewis says what they do taps into the trend for living "healthily, eating organic food and making less waste". The concept is "almost hippy-ish," she says.

The market for alternative funerals is larger than the green movement. Some see a funeral as an opportunity to have the "coolest send-off that they can think of," Celestis founder Charles Chafer says.

His company offers people the chance to have their ashes sent to space, either to be buried on the moon or on endless voyages. "We've had really well-known folks in the space - Eugene Shoemaker, the geologist who taught the Apollo astronauts what rocks to look for, and the guy who played Scotty in Star Trek James Doohan."

Chafer says demand is ticking higher this year, as many look for a way to personalise the experience. Covid-19 is, clearly, having an impact, he says. Already, he's got people who passed from the virus signed up for upcoming trips.

But, actually, more often than not, it's been people registering the interest themselves. "I'd say the world has turned upside down for everybody. People react in different ways.

"There are more than a couple of folks for whom 2020 has caused them to go, 'I really better figure out what I'm going to do'. And they're thinking, 'this is what I want. So I guess I'll sign up'."

- Telegraph