A Birmingham startup has a goal of easing the process of transferring wealth and handling affairs after death using a subscription-based digital platform.
Prismm is a digital vault that consolidates and centralizes assets, documents and accounts to be shared with beneficiaries, trusted individuals, lawyers, executors or advisers in the event of incapacitation or death.
The platform has built-in privacy guards so account holders can control what can be seen by others and when they will have access to it. Account holders can store the physical location of documents in Prismm rather than uploading the documents themselves.
The company was founded by Martha Underwood and Christopher Winslett. Underwood was inspired to start the company when she began preparing to handle the affairs of her parents as they aged.
"I realized I can't keep traveling to Miami," Underwood said. "If something happens, do I readily have all of the information that I need to handle the affairs?"
The Covid-19 pandemic also tied into the inspiration for founding Prismm. Underwood had friends who lost spouses to the virus, and it highlighted the unique challenges of unexpectedly losing a loved one.
The platform, founded in February 2021, is fully functional and looking to scale. It has added about 50 users since it began advertising in January. It is looking at partnerships with insurance firms and estate planning and trust attorneys. Prismm is aiming to increase its user base by 10,000 to 20,000 users within the next couple of years. Underwood said the company also will be looking to raise in three to six months.
"The future looks pretty bright for us as we start to scale. We have several large estate planning firms looking to bring our platform on as they look to digitize their documents for their clients," Underwood said.
The company's founders also see a strong future in Birmingham.
"I think Birmingham is the prime place to tackle something like this," Underwood said. "This is a hard topic. Birmingham is used to handling hard things, and I think it's the right place for it to grow. So I don't see me growing the company anywhere else but Birmingham."
Though getting a startup off the ground presented its challenges, Underwood said Birmingham is making positive steps toward helping young companies grow.
"What Birmingham can offer is the ability to get in the room with some of the decision makers because (Birmingham is) still small," Underwood said. "And (Birmingham is) still very open to making sure that these companies thrive. So getting the introductions and being able to network having the networking events that gets us in front of some of the decision-makers really is prime, is a key thing for making a successful environment. Not getting lost in some of the grandeur of larger companies of larger cities."
