Betterleave — Creating a Better Work Environment and Grief Support
We are excited to announce that Betterleave recently joined the Chingona Ventures family! Chingona Ventures is proud to have invested in Betterleave’ pre-seed round, alongside The Fund and other investors. Betterleave Bereavement is the leading bereavement benefits provider for employers, built to support employees experiencing the death of a family member, friend, colleague, pet, pregnancy loss and more. Companies use Betterleave to help employees navigate the complex bereavement landscape with the help of care coordinators and top death care experts, products, and services together in one place, saving time and money. Our team has seen many people struggle, especially during the pandemic, with the passing of family members or colleagues, and Betterleave is committed to building tools for more resilience, engagement, and humanity in the workplace. Congratulations to Cara McCarty Abbott, Albert Swantner, and the team for closing their pre-seed round!
The need for a resource like Betterleave is long overdue; the COVID-19 pandemic and a shift in workforce culture driven, by Millennials and Gen-Z’s, have incentivized companies to holistically examine their compensation and benefits packages. By recalibrating focus on benefits, companies can better acquire and retain top talent. It’s a known fact that investing in corporate wellness is linked to cost savings as employees are less likely to have habitual absences from work. Lastly, a solid benefits package provides insight to the culture of an organization. Because of this, the proportion of companies that provide paid bereavement leave has increased over 30% since 2020.
Betterleave is the first solution to offer personalized assistance, self-serve, and resource groups that provide full coverage over the spectrum of bereavement care across work and life. The way Betterleave works can be split into 3 groups: bereavement coordination, life planning, and workplace wellbeing. In terms of bereavement coordination, Betterleave provides Care Coordinators. These individuals assist employees in navigating the complex landscape by aggregating consumer-focused death care products and services together in a centralized location. For life planning, Betterleave provides resources for employees to proactively engage in estate planning and options for supplemental life insurance purchases. Lastly, workplace wellbeing is achieved by supporting various levels of management and impact, from CEOs and HR Leaders down to managers. Betterleave can help employers ensure the appropriate bereavement policy for firms and empower managers to best support their employees.
Pictured above: All the grief sectors Betterleave hopes to cover
Our team is excited to be an investor and supporter of Betterleave, especially given our investment thesis that focuses on markets that are often overlooked. Death Tech has historically lacked innovation and has been highly fragmented; however, in recent years, we have seen a rise of startups trying to tackle problems within the sector. Approximately 150k people pass away daily, with up to 90% of those attributed to age-related causes, which is especially true of industrialized countries like the U.S. In reality, sometimes employers are not equipped to support bereavement & the grief-related needs of their workforce beyond leave — and there’s where Betterleave comes to fill in the gap.
According to Betterleave’s co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Albert Swantner, their platform is simply a win-win for everyone — both workers and employees win in the long-run; “There’s this war for talent, and so any small edge that you can offer means a lot,” Swantner said. “Just in case these tragic things happen to you, this company is going to have you covered. That means something to employees today, and so we anticipate pretty quick growth over this year.”
With a strong team led by Cara and Albert, both experienced co-founders who are passionate about the problem they have set out to solve, the company is adopting a unique approach to reaching their market and helping employees tackle real, hard life issues. Cara is a SaaS & HR Tech founder with an exit and experience as an HR Operator. In 2016, she spent three final months with her mom after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. During that time, she assumed the roles of palliative caregiver, estate manager, and funeral planner while working to decrease the obvious and acute gap in employer support. Albert Swantner, the technical co-founder, has a master’s degree in Engineering and is a previous founder who ran Engineering and Product at Mobile Tech RX, founding and selling it to a private equity firm in 2020. Albert is excited about merging his passion for people and technology to bring Betterleave to the world.
We are thrilled to see Betterleave raise their pre-seed round and be able to make bereavement care centralized and accessible for all, starting in the workplace. Congratulations again to the team for their incredible work and launch!
