Exizent secures £3.6 million investment to revolutionise the bereavement process for legal and financial services
Exizent, a Glasgow-based technology firm, has raised significant funding to transform the way the legal and financial services industry deals with bereavement and make the process far less stressful for family members experiencing loss.
In an era of digitised services, with more transparent and open access to information, Exizent is building the first ever platform that connects data, services and the network of people involved when someone passes away. The company’s mission is to reduce uncertainty, increase speed and make the process far simpler for everyone involved.
The company was founded by former financial services veteran Nick Cousins and transformation and technology leader Aleks Tomczyk. Both have track records of building successful products and businesses, with Tomczyk having formerly been founder and CEO of boutique consultancy Arum, while Cousins was previously Chief Product Owner of Barclays Wealth and Investments division.
The business has successfully raised £3.6 million in funding from several investors including FNZ, the global platform-as-a-service firm which reached unicorn status in 2018.
Nick Cousins, Founder and CEO of Exizent, said: “Our personal experiences are what led to us to establish Exizent. We believe the administrative tasks facing families after the death of a loved one should be far easier, and that modern technology solutions and services can make this a reality. We have spent the last 18 months carefully designing, developing, and testing our product with innovative partners, and look forward to launching the platform to legal services professionals later this year.”
Adrian Durham, Group CEO of FNZ said: “The Exizent team has already achieved an enormous amount and we are proud to support their vision of leveraging technology to make the bereavement process far easier for everyone involved. Exizent will also be joining the fast growing FNZ OpenPlatform App Store.”
Exizent’s platform will begin by helping legal services firms, working for executors, efficiently manage the process of completing and submitting probate applications, or confirmation as it is known in Scotland. It will also make the process of gathering information about an estate easier by connecting third parties to automatically discover assets the person may have had, reducing the reliance on an executor to find and send physical documents. Exizent Ltd, Registered in Scotland No. SC609104.
The company also plans to build digital connections with the various institutions that hold data and information about the person who has passed away to help them deal with queries from executors and legal services firms more efficiently.
Notes to editors:
1. Today, many of the key steps in the administration of a bereavement remain manual and paper based. For those needing to apply for probate (relevant to around half of the c600,000 UK deaths each year, ONS, NRS & NISRA) it is the role of the Executor, or a Legal Services firms helping them, to unearth evidence of financial / non-financial assets and confirm values. Much of this is reliant on finding paper documents or accessing online accounts. With the ever-increasing fragmentation of our financial lives (more money in more places) this task is increasingly onerous.