Betterleave – a pioneering platform that partners with organizations to improve access, experience, and outcomes while lowering the total cost of bereavement care – recently announced it has raised $2.4 million in funding. The funding round was led by Chingona Ventures, with participation from Bread and Butter Ventures, Vitalize VC, Wisdom Ventures Fund, Coyote Ventures, and AARP. Betterleave brings a differentiated approach to grief and mental health by offering a comprehensive digital and clinical care solution that addresses the complex challenges individuals face when preparing for and navigating bereavement.
Unlike single-point solutions that primarily offer logistical services such as will drafting and funeral planning, Betterleave offers a comprehensive digital health platform that focuses on navigating logistics, processing grief and driving positive clinical outcomes. It covers the entire bereavement spectrum, from pre-need to immediate need, loss navigation, and continuous grief support. And the platform specializes in various types of grief, including but not limited to the loss of a loved one, pregnancy loss, pet loss, anticipatory loss, and relationship loss. Plus, Betterleave also supports patients and caregivers, facilitating the seamless transfer of critical information via programmatically sent messages and family collaboration features. Hospices benefit from this platform as they are required to provide bereavement support for 13 months following a loss.
About 75% of members engaging with the Betterleave platform and providers see an improvement in their systems with access to licensed therapists, grief support groups, family counseling, as well as wellness, doula and spiritual services. And Betterleave not only supports individuals but also employers by helping them build and launch bereavement care programs.
Betterleave was launched by Cara McCarty Abbott last year after she spent more than a decade of experience in human relations and organizational psychology. And she previously co-founded Code Pilot, a training and recruitment platform for hiring teams, which AngelList acquired. She teamed up with Betterleave Head of Product Sam Leung to scale product features and deliver a comprehensive bereavement care solution that combines both tech-enabled support and clinical mental health expertise.
The team also consists of a global network of coaches and therapists with significant experience in grief and loss. And the company has already gained significant traction by partnering with hospices, insurers, and hospital systems to establish bereavement care as a new category of employee benefits. It is in-network with Humana, Aetna, Cigna, United, and BCBSTX and it plans to expand its clinical care model and refine its grief training curriculum to meet the growing demand over the coming months.
KEY QUOTES:
“Bereavement is one of those topics that many don’t even think about until the moment they need the care. I experienced the challenges of grief firsthand when my mother passed away after a terminal cancer diagnosis. Grief is complex and has a broad impact across a person’s life. It’s long past time that we shine a light on the mental health care gap in the workplace, so drawing from my background as an HR leader, I founded Betterleave to address the burdens that grieving individuals face, both before and after loss.”
— Cara McCarty Abbott, founder and CEO of Betterleave
“Betterleave is reimagining what bereavement care can and should be by bringing industry-leading partners from death care, insurance, health systems, hospices, and mental health networks together to create a holistic platform. The market traction that Cara and her team have been able to achieve in just over a year clearly demonstrates the massive demand for an end-to-end solution like Betterleave. We’re excited to support their vision.”
— Samara Mejia Hernandez, Founding Partner of Chingona Ventures
“One of the challenges as a HR Professional is being able to do enough for your employees with only a certain amount of bandwidth. Our partnership with Betterleave allows us to extend to a level of care and support as a department that we want to give to our employees.”
— Angela Shaw, Vice President of Talent at Amplify Credit Union
“With so many people taking on a caregiver role or experiencing bereavement of their aging family members, people are now expecting mental health and logistics support from their employers and their healthcare providers. However, we know today there’s a pretty big gap meeting needs and are facing costly outcomes.”
— Betterleave Head of Product Sam Leung
