Brunei’s legacy planning startup Memori raises US$100K funding
The startup offers a legacy planning service and plans to launch its platform next month
Brunei-based legacy planning startup Memori raised BND158,000 (US$ 100,000) from 113 Venture Growth Fund despite having yet to launch its online platform.
This marks one of Brunei’s largest seed rounds investment in a startup to date, as reported by Bizbrunei.
Memori plans to become an all-in-one online platform to manage legacy, from the convenience of securing wills, insurance policies, and memorial services.
With the funding, Memori wants to grow in Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia, where an estimated 33 million adults do not have wills.
“We’re looking to simplify and make the whole process of preparing for one’s death an affordable thing. Death is such a universal matter but ironically expensive and difficult to navigate,” said CEO and co-founder of Memori Queenie Chong, who got the idea for Memori after experiencing the loss of her grandparents.
Also Read: Singapore Foodie channel’s Malaysian parent raises funding for expansion
Chong, being a certified will planner, still found that the experience was a difficult one. “It can be extremely frustrating when you don’t know where to go or what to do after the loss,” said the 30-year-old Bruneian.
Chong then founded Memori just in August this year and then brought along COO Jonathan Tan and CBO Phoebe Kow, who are also certified will planners.
According to Chong, an estimated 80 per cent of Southeast Asia’s population do not have wills due to a social taboo that makes it an uncomfortable thing to talk about end of life. Another cause noted by the company is the misconception about the complexity and cost of the legacy process.
“Our technology seeks to address this issue. Thanks to social media, there is now the ability to control our digital footprint,” said Chong.
Memori provides will writing services directly, and soon will facilitate customers with a consult and connection to a range of bereavement-related services, such as arrangements for funerals, burials, and caskets as well as buying insurance policies.
In doing its business, Memori also takes advantage of blockchain technology, that will be used to build its website. The technology will enable users to safely store their digital assets – including social media and email accounts passwords – and pre-select the beneficiaries when a user passes on.
“Memori certainly has the potential to be Brunei’s first tech Unicorn because it is disruptive and a game changer,” said Tan Chun Wei, a founding partner of 113 Venture who is also the district service director of Nirvana Asia Group – Asia’s largest bereavement care provider.
Also Read: Indian food delivery startup Swiggy raises US$1B investment led by Naspers
Memori is a participant of the ongoing fourth cycle of DARe’s Startup Bootcamp facilitated by Singapore-based Golden Equator.
The post Brunei’s legacy planning startup Memori raises US$100K funding appeared first on e27.
