Farewill

Farewill provides will-writing, probate, and cremation services in the UK. It claims to be the UK’s biggest will writer, accounting for 1 in 10 wills written[2]. Farewill is registered in England and Wales with the Law Society[3] and was declared the National Will Writing Firm of the year in 2019[4].

Farewill
Private
Industry
FoundedJuly 24, 2015 (2015-07-24) in London, England
Founders
  • Dan Garrett
  • Tom Rogers
Headquarters27 Downham Rd, Haggerston,
London
,
England
Area served
United Kingdom
Services
Number of employees
84+ [1]
Websitefarewill.com

It is a B2C product but is also provided as a free service through a number of charities[5].

History

Farewill is a London-based company founded in 2015 by Dan Garrett (Co-Founder & CEO) and Tom Rogers (Co-Founder & CPTO)[6]. Garrett explained in a Forbes[7] interview that he started the company after being inspired whilst designing new products for elderly residents in a care home in Tokyo[8].

Dan Garrett returned to the UK and moved into the death industry, where he organised 15 funerals and gained a qualification in will writing[9], founding Farewill on 24th July 2015[10] to "make [death care] easier"[8].

In 2016, following their seed funding round, Tracy Doree, angel investor and founder of venture capital firm Kindred Capital, joined Farewill as its Chairperson[11]. In addition to Tracy, the company has 3 additional Directors: Tom Rogers, its Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO), Tim Levene of Augmentum Fintech and Dan Garrett, the CEO[12].

In 2019 Farewill were listed as one of Rocketlist's Top 20 Companies to Work For[13], Fintech50’s Hottest Fintechs to watch[14], and Sifted’s Top UK Startups to follow in 2020[15]. It was awarded best social innovation at the Europas in 2020[16].

According to Augmentum Fintech, Farewill grew by 10x between January 2019 and July 2020[17]. According to LinkedIn, it currently has 84 employees[1].

Farewill’s position in the death industry and work with charities has been a topic of discussion[18] due to Farewill’s unregulated status[19]. Farewill’s CEO has criticized the sector as “overtly traditional”, with prices that are “unaffordably high”[20]. In 2020, the Financial Times questioned the need for new technology in this sector[21].


Services

Direct

Farewill offers a number of services including will-writing (online and over the phone), a direct cremation service a probate service, and a subscription-based will update service.

Farewill state that users can complete an online will in 15 minutes for £90[17]. An additional service, at £10 per year allows for the same will to be updated an unlimited number of times.

The will-writing process on Farewill is based on questions that the user answers to provide the necessary information. After this, the user goes through a payment process, and then they can download and sign the document in the presence of their chosen witnesses to finally obtain their legal will[22].

Direct cremations - where the cremation happens privately and the ashes are returned to the family afterwards - start from £980[23]. This has been reported as being around a third of the UK average cost for direct cremation, and around a fifth of the average UK funeral cost[16].

Probate services through Farewill cost from £595[24].

In 2016, TechCrunch wrote of their data privacy concerns of storing wills digitally, online. This led to Farewill responding that user data is stored on Amazon’s Secure Storage Service, in Ireland, encrypted using AES-256 encryption[25].

Charity partners

The company has partnered with 50 UK charities, including Cancer Research UK, British Heart Foundation, McMillan, The Royal British Legion, and Christian Aid[26]. The charities provide access to the will-writing service to encourage bequeathals to their organisation[5].

It is estimated that this has generated over £260 million in pledged income, across the charities, since Farewill launched[2].


CEO – Dan Garrett

Dan Garrett is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Farewill. He completed an MSc in Design at the Royal College of Art, a Master of Structural Engineering at Oxford University, and an MSc in Global Innovation Design at Imperial College London[27].

Garrett started Farewill after working in a Japanese residential home where he saw what he would later characterize as ‘the ineffectiveness of the death care industry’. When he returned to the UK, prior to starting Farewill, he organised 15 funerals and obtained will-writing qualifications[28].

Dan Garrett was the 2019 winner of the Legal Innovation Awards Outstanding Innovator Award[29].


Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Farewill saw demand for direct cremations increase by 300%[30] and demand for wills 12 times higher than normal[31].

Partnering with former rugby professional Gareth Thomas, Farewill campaigned for an update to legislation on wills, as rules requiring wills to be witnessed were proving impractical due to social distancing measures[30]. The Ministry of Justice investigated temporarily pausing such requirements.

From April 1st 2020, Farewill began providing free will-writing services to all NHS staff[32]. It was reported in July 2020 that over 15,000 NHS workers had used the free wills service[33].


Funding and investors

Farewill has raised £30M in total[34].

After a number of seed rounds, a series A round occurred In January 2019, which raised £7.5M from 10 investors. This was led by Augmentum Fintech[6] and was said to be used to double the size of Farewill’s workforce[35].

On the 8th of July 2020, the company raised another Series B Round funding, led by venture capital firm Highland Europe[36]. This round totalled £20 million, at what is believed to be a £70 million valuation[37], and was said to be used to expand and improve the service offering through the UK[38]. Notable investors in this round included Keen Venture Partners, Richard Pierson of Headspace, Broadhaven Capital Partners and VentureFunders[16].

Current investors publicly invested in Farewill are Alex Chesterman[26], Augmentum Fintech, DMG Ventures, Broadhaven Capital Partners[8], Errol Damelin[39], Highland Europe[8], Jamjar Investments[26], Keen Venture Partners[38], Kindred Capital[26], Microsoft[40], Richard Pierson (of Headspace)[8], SAATCHIiNVEST[26], SBRI Healthcare[41], Taaveet Hinrikus[35], TinyVC[42], Tracy Terrill, Taavet Hinrikus of TransferWise and VentureFounders[26].

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References
  1. "Farewill". LinkedIn. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  2. Lunden, Ingrid (2020-07-08). "UK's Farewill raises $25M for its new-approach online will writing, funerals and other death services". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  3. "Farewill Limited". The Law Society. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  4. "Night Of Celebration At The British Wills and Probate Awards". 2019-10-18. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  5. "Farewill: the struggle of working with non-profits". Courier. 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  6. "Farewill". Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  7. Salter, Philip (2017-07-24). "This London-Based Entrepreneur Is Digitizing And Disrupting Wills". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  8. Symcox, Jonathan (2020-07-08). "£20m investment for death tech start-up". Business Cloud. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  9. Whitfield, Nick (2018-01-15). "Farewill Q&A — Dan Garrett, Farewill CEO". Kyan (Interview). Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  10. "Farewill Ltd".
  11. "Tracy Doree". AngelList. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  12. "Farewill Ltd". Companies House. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  13. "Rocket List 2019". Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  14. "The FinTech50 2019: Launch Edition". The FinTech50 2019: Launch Edition. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  15. "Top UK startups to follow in 2020". Sifted. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  16. Tucker, Charlotte (2020-07-08). "UK-based Farewill raises €22.1 million to reduce funeral poverty and modernise the death industry". EU Startups. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  17. Scammell, Robert (2020-07-08). "Will-writing startup Farewill raises £20m to tackle funeral poverty". VERDICT. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  18. Hilborne, Nick (2019-08-19). "Will-writing boss warns of battle between regulated and unregulated firms". Legal Futures. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  19. Hetherington, Simon (2020-08-08). "Online Wills: Even More Dangerous Than You Think?". New Law Journal. 7852.
  20. Harding, Natasha (2020-07-08). "Online Will-Writer Farewill Looking To Build Team After Raising £20m". Today's Will & Probate. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  21. Kelly, Jemima (2020-02-05). "Oh no, the death-techers are coming". Financial Times. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  22. Shoffman, Marc (2020-06-25). "Farewill Review - The smartest way to do a will?". Money to the Masses. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  23. "Simple Cremations". MaxLyte. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  24. "Apply for Probate with Farewill". MaxLyte. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  25. Lomas, Natasha (2016-11-21). "UK startup Farewill wants to give will-writing a web-based makeover". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  26. May, Melanie (2019-01-22). "Online will-writing service Farewill completes £7.5m capital raise". UK Fundraising.
  27. "Dan Garrett". Royal College of Art. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  28. Pete Matthew (2020-06-08). "Transforming the DEATH Industry, with Dan Garrett of Farewill". Meaningful Money (Podcast). Meaningful Money. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  29. "2019 Winners". Law.com. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  30. Stewart, Rebecca (2020-05-06). "'Death tech' brand Farewill on finding its place amid a crisis". The Drum. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  31. Brazell, Emma (2020-04-09). "NHS staff are writing wills as they face death on coronavirus frontline". The Metro. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  32. Reynolds, John (2020-04-09). "Will-writing startup offers free will service to NHS staff as they fight Covid-19". AltFi. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  33. Hilborne, Nick (2020-07-08). "Farewill raises £20m to fuel exponential growth". Legal Futures. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  34. "Farewill Raises £20M in Funding". FinSMEs. 2020-07-08. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  35. Adler, Timothy (2019-01-22). "Will-writing disruptor Farewill raises £8m from Daily Mail and others". Growth Business. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  36. Heathman, Amelia (2020-07-08). "Farewill: the funeral and will-writing start-up on a mission to change how we deal with death". Evening Standard. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  37. Kleinman, Mark (2020-07-02). "Coronavirus: Will-writing platform Farewill snaps up new funding". Sky News. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  38. Musgrove, Annie (2020-07-08). "London-based Farewill gets £20 million to modernise UK's death care industry". Tech.eu. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  39. Williams-Grut, Oscar (2017-02-21). "How the founder of 'legal loan shark' Wonga made a comeback as London's fintech messiah". Business Insider. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  40. "Venture Round - Farewill". Crunch Base. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  41. "SBRI Healthcare announces funding boost for urgent and emergency care services". Cambridge Network. 2016-03-30. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  42. Williams, Nia (2019-01-21). "Farewill raises £7.5m to disrupt death". UK Tech News. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
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