DeadHappy has smashed through its crowdfunding target with three weeks still to run in the campaign.
The InsurTech has raised almost £5.4 million from more than 500 investors via Seedrs – surpassing its goal by more than £268,000.
In August the Leicester-headquartered company announced triple-digit annual growth.
The first half of 2021 saw revenues at DeadHappy – which adopts a straight-talking approach to planning for death – grow by over 120% compared to the same period last year.
The business saw a whopping 87% year-on-year rise in consumers searching for ‘deathwishes’ on its platform. Considered the brand’s USP, these are a way of helping customers express what they want to happen when they die.
More than 213,000 deathwishes have now been made by its customers while the company has sold more than 18,600 life insurance plans to date.
“Some of the options we give them are the financial, responsible stuff – we have standard deathwishes for paying off the mortgage, school fees, one for debt,” co-founder Phil Zeidler recently told our sister website TechBlast, while also revealing how his three-week coma sparked the idea for the business.
“We get the real engagement from customers when it comes to the other stuff: opting for a Viking or Star Wars funeral; to have your ashes fired into space so you’re up there when your loved ones look up at the stars at night. We partner with companies that can carry out these wishes.
“It might be leaving a pot of money to buy their son a brand new football kit every season or sending a bunch of very good mates on a final golfing tour in Vegas – one last hurrah.
“If you do this on a life insurance policy, you can put a pot of £25,000 in there for them and it might only cost you an extra £50 a month. You can do some pretty amazing things.”
Venture capital backers in previous rounds include Octopus, Headline, 4Ventures, Verso and Volution.
Crowdfunding