In the funeral industry, it’s rare to find a social platform application that effectively connects people around the life cycle event called a memorial service. Everdays, which first launched in 2017, is rapidly growing toward $100 million in valuation. The company just completed raising $12 million to bring a modern (i.e. text-based) approach to end-of-life communication.

Everdays is the largest and fastest-growing social platform for building communities around milestone life events. Everdays provides free memorial announcements and keeps users up-to-date about deaths in their life’s network.

The app enables people to share memories, events and condolences when loved ones need it most. The platform uses artificial intelligence to connect users based on details about their hometown, high school, military service and funeral homes in their community to deliver automatic announcements, ensuring users never miss a relevant death in their life’s network.

Here’s an interview with Nick Jaensch, Executive Vice President of Everdays, recorded at the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association in 2017.

The Series A funding round bringsEverdays’ valuation to nearly $100 million in just 20 months since it launched.The $12 million raise, led by Houston-based Gordy Companies, quadruplesEverdays’ valuation from its seed round in 2017, validating its refreshinglymodern approach to facilitating communication around death.

The company plans to at least doubleits team of 30 over the next 12 months, hiring aggressively in all areasincluding marketing and product development. Everdays has enabled a dramaticexpansion in the community and content generated around end-of-life events,capturing a large, proprietary audience and creating a market where nonepreviously existed.

With over 1,000 funeral homes usingits cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) dashboard, and 1.8 millionfamilies and friends connected on its apps in under two years, Everdays is onpace to capture ten percent of the 2.7 million yearly deaths in the U.S withinthe next three years.

And, with an unserved audience of100 million people in the U.S. ages 55 and up, demand for the offering was sostrong that competitive bidding drove the valuation far past Everdays’ founderand CEO Mark Alhermizi’s expectations. This allowed Everdays the luxury ofpassing on traditional venture capital in favor of high-net worth familyinvestment offices.

“Today, the support a familyreceives during these critical times is small, short-lived and painfullyanalog,." Alhermizi said. “It’s what I experienced when my dad passed away a fewyears ago. It was such a hard and debilitating time, and there was notechnology to guide or support the process to make it easier, for me or thecommunity of family and friends who wanted to support me. Everdays is solvingthat problem and de-stigmatizing conversations around death, helping peoplefeel more comfortable by offering the right kind of support when it’s neededmost.."

As both a web and mobile platformthat builds a social community around a family before, during and long after adeath, Everdays delivers on modern consumer expectations by infusing technologyinto an otherwise traditional industry that has not kept pace with contemporarymobile experiences.

Families use the app to create anEverdays Announcement where community, dialogue, events, content and commerceconverge to provide support during hospice care or when a loved one passes.

“We aren’t just pouring funds into abetter invention,." said Russell Gordy, CEO of Gordy Companies, one of twomulti-billion dollar family investment funds that led the round. “We’re fuelingthe innovation of an entirely new concept and tapping a latent market just likeUber and Airbnb did. Everdays is giving the millions of baby boomers and theirtech savvy children a long overdue way to celebrate life through powerfultechnology.."

The Everdays app is available on both iOS and Android. To learn more about the platform, visit www.everdays.com.