Digital estate planning platform Safewill has secured $17 million through a Series B capital raising led by Reinventure and King River Capital, attracting strategic investments from a host of seasoned financial services industry entrepreneurs.
Among the investors to jump aboard are Larry Diamond, Zip Co’s co-founder, and Alex Vynokur and Ilan Israelstam, the co-founders of exchange-traded-funds provider Betashares, as well as legendary Australian funds manager Chris Cuffe and the former CEO of Perpetual, Geoff Lloyd.
The Sydney-based Safewill, which raised $5.5 million in a Series A round last year, was founded in 2019 by Adam Lubofsky and Dan Bennett to digitalise estate planning and make it more affordable.
The latest funding round is aimed at expanding the company’s product offering.
“The way estate planning is approached in Australia is outdated and doesn’t work for modern families,” says Lubofsky, the CEO of Safewill.
“With over half of Australians currently without a will, our mission is clear: make estate planning accessible, approachable and relevant for everyone.
“Since 2019, we’ve empowered more than 150,000 Australians to create legally binding wills and have become the primary means for writing a will across ANZ.
“Now, we’re taking the next step - we want to build the products that help Australians navigate the loss of a loved one with dignity, simplicity and meaning.”
Safewill reveals that it has grown its user base by 200 per cent year-on-year since 2019, delivering an 80 per cent reduction in average will-creation costs compared to traditional legal services.
The company’s enterprise-grade software is used by the likes of Maurice Blackburn, Mercer Super, Real Insurance and the Public Trustee and Guardian of the ACT, which Safewill says shows that it is more than just a traditional will kit.
Safewill has also partnered with more than 250 charities in Australia and New Zealand to provide software for their bequest programs, raising over $1 billion in future funding through gifts in wills for organisations such as Guide Dogs, RSPCA and Cancer Council.
Lubofsky says Safewill has grown to become the largest will writer in Australia and New Zealand over the past five years, with plans now in place to start “taking the next step”.
“We’re moving beyond estate planning towards estate administration and planning for what the future of that space will look like,” he says.
“It’s such a complex, manual and opaque process around such a challenging time for families. There’s a wonderful opportunity to create digital products and services to cater to those moments. Solving that for the benefit of all Australians for generations feels like a worthwhile mission.”
Lubofsky says the fresh capital will support the development of “digital experiences and products that support every stage of life's journey, before and after death”.
“We’re not only digitising traditional will-making but also creating a technological ecosystem that allows us to reshape how Australians approach the way death is planned for and managed,” he says.
Among the company’s offerings is specialist wills and estates law firm Safewill Legal, which the company says is one of the fastest-growing estate law practices in the country.
The $17 million Series B funding will support Safewill’s core initiatives of “rapid product innovation, expanding market reach and growing a top-tier team”.
“This funding enables us to extend our reach and accelerate our product development to meet rising demand,” says Lubofsky.
“We’re seeing Australians embrace digital estate planning solutions, and we’re excited to scale our capabilities to serve them.”
Danny Gilligan, managing partner of co-lead investor Reinventure, describes Safewill as “one of most interesting fintech opportunities I have seen in my career”.
“It is also our favourite place to invest - at the intersection of large, overlooked markets and things important to society,” he says.
“We are excited to continue to support Safewill in the next phase and bring a really valuable group of investors along for the journey."
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