Kolodny Bets on AI to Transform Estate Processing

Lauren Kolodny, a partner at Acrew Capital, has consistently championed the power of technology to democratize access to financial services for everyday individuals. In 2016, when the neobank Chime was struggling to convince investors of its potential to serve the working class, Kolodny was the sole venture capitalist backing the company.

Recently, she led a $20 million Series A investment in Alix, founded by Alexandra Mysoor. This investment was inspired by Mysoor’s personal experience assisting a friend with the complex and often arduous procedures involved in settling her friend’s late mother’s estate. Mysoor noted that this experience required her to dedicate 900 hours over a span of 18 months to tasks like transferring bank assets, locating 401(k)s, canceling accounts, and ensuring equitable asset distribution among family members.

“I was shocked at how hard this process was,” Mysoor remarked, describing it as paper-driven and severely outdated. She highlighted the issues of searching online for helpful to-do lists and consulting expensive attorneys who could only handle a portion of the necessary work.

This realization led Mysoor to envision how AI agents could manage some of the most labor-intensive aspects of trust administration, such as scanning documents for data extraction, auto-filling complex forms, and facilitating communications with financial institutions.

When Kolodny met with Mysoor and learned about Alix’s mission, the issue resonated deeply with her. Recognizing the impending transfer of trillions of dollars to millennial and Gen Z generations in the next two decades, Kolodny noted that the estate settlement process is still a burden that falls heavily on those grieving their parents.

While some companies like Empathy provide support for account closures in bereavement situations, Kolodny found a lack of comprehensive estate settlement services available in the market.

“How is it possible that there’s this messy problem that involves so much project management that there aren’t meaningful services around?” Kolodny pondered. This realization triggered her strong belief that solving such problems with AI could pave the way for transformative changes in the industry.

Kolodny argues that Alix represents one of the first of many AI-powered startups aimed at democratizing financial and administrative tasks historically reserved for the ultra-wealthy.

Alix operates with a fee structure that charges 1% of an estate’s value. However, for estates valued under $1 million, customers can expect to pay between $9,000 and $12,000, with the cost varying according to the complexity of the estate’s affairs.