Latest news with #ModerneVentures
Miami Herald
07-07-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Haven't made a will yet? startup has new AI tool to help
In 2017, Cody Barbo told a room of investors that he was getting married in a month. His friend asked him this question: "Hey man, you're getting married. Do you have a will?" Barbo froze, threw out a mild swear word and answered, "I should probably have one." Barbo is the CEO of Trust & Will, a San Diego company that simplifies the creation of estate planning documents by drafting documents with its lawyer-vetted software. Eight years later, Barbo is married and his family has grown. So has his company. Trust & Will, based in San Diego's Bankers Hill, has helped more than 1 million families make estate plans, Barbo said in an interview from his Dallas home office. "Normally you pay thousands of dollars up front to do this with an attorney, or hundreds to thousands of dollars for those updates, for that ongoing guidance," he said. "This is the democratization of estate planning." It has raised more than $80 million from venture capital and corporate investors including Moderne Ventures, American Express, AARP and Northwestern Mutual. Last year, the company became "cash-flow positive," startup speak for hitting profitability, and then secured a Series C round of capital this year. It employs around 110 people, up from around 80 in 2023. And last week, it announced the launch of a new AI-powered platform called EstateOS, which Barbo says will make estate planning even easier, more efficient, more personalized and more broadly accessible. It also turns Trust & Will - one of several companies that digitally create estate plans - into what Barbo says is "the first company to launch an AI-integrated estate planning platform at scale, specifically designed for both consumers and financial professionals. While others may be experimenting with AI, EstateOS is the first comprehensive system combining Trust & Will's proprietary estate planning software with embedded OpenAI-powered tools to streamline creation, review, and updates of estate plans." New tools, an AI boost Using proprietary software and OpenAI, EstateOS delivers four features that are "intelligent upgrades of previously manual or slower processes," Barbo said, who co-founded the company with Daniel Goldstein and Brian Lamb. Some of the new features will appeal to U.S. consumers - only 31% of which have a will, according to a company survey of 10,000 people - and others will appeal to the company's industry targets: financial planners, life insurance agents, nonprofits and attorneys, he added. One feature, called PlanScore, does what its name suggests: It "scores" estate plans with a rating system that helps customers find blind spots and figure out where their estate plan needs buttressing. Another is an AI assistant that lets users ask questions and have the answer served instantly. Instead of digging around to find out who was named as a guardian, Barbo said, you can ask who the guardian is and get reminded that it is your mother-in-law. A third feature is document extraction, which will summarize and mine user-submitted documents for useful or actionable data and workflows. This could be especially useful for people who have drawn estate plans that are "just sitting in a box in the closet." The last feature streamlines communication - and client prospecting. The "Connected Networks" tool brings together parties connected to an account, including executors, beneficiaries, attorneys and financial advisers, into a shared platform. That can make deed transfers and notarized transactions run more smoothly, and also make it easier for those professionals to build their contact lists. Down the line, Barbo said a fifth service will keep track of life's seismic events, the kind where an estate plan update could make sense, such as marriage, divorce, a new baby, a home purchase - and alert users when they should amend something. Pricing to create a will or trust remains the same. An individual's will-based plan starts at $199 and a trust-based plan starts at $499. Couples are charged an extra $100, and updates cost extra. Optional memberships at different pricing tiers give access to the EstateOS and other features. Attorney support is included in some plans or can be purchased as an add-on. The estate planning startup's plans For its first eight years, Trust & Will was one of several in a crowded digital legal document and estate planning marketplace, all of which turned estate planning from a costly investment to something that could be scratched off one's to-do list with a few clicks and a spare hour. LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer are the bigger names, but there's also and the company that would win wittiest estate planning domain name, if that were a thing - The National Council on Aging recommends these online tools, saying "If an attorney isn't in your budget, an online will-making service can be a good alternative." Among the five companies it recommends, Trust & Will is crowned "most user-friendly." In estate planning, the use of AI is a topic of interest for attorneys, according to the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. A free video series explores practical and ethical issues around generative AI in estate planning. "Resistance to the coming of AI is futile," one speaker, a law professor, said last year. Lawyers, he added, "should keep abreast of the changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology. So accordingly, you have an obligation to yourself, your clients, and the profession to become acquainted with and proficient with the use of AI in your estate planning practice." Barbo's 2017 pitch to investors succeeded: His company won $5,000 in seed money. Today he is eyeing the biggest prize for a startup - to take the company public. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Moderne Ventures announces the six companies selected to join its exclusive Moderne Passport industry immersion program
CHICAGO, April 10, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Moderne Ventures announced its first 2025 Passport Class. Moderne Ventures is a strategic venture capital and growth equity firm investing in disruptive technologies that can apply to both Moderne's core industries (real estate, insurance, finance, and sustainability) and expand beyond them to capture larger venture returns. The Moderne Passport Program is an intensive six-month industry immersion program providing its participants with education, exposure, insight, and relationships to drive customer growth. "At Moderne, we take a generalist approach to vertical investing, looking outside of our core industries to find technologies that can be applicable within them," said Constance Freedman, Founder and Managing Partner at Moderne Ventures. "This latest Passport cohort includes breakthrough crypto payments technology, digital transaction management and video games creating transformative opportunities for multi-trillion dollar markets." The Moderne Passport program hosts companies of all stages – in this cohort, companies range from seed to Series C and have raised over $220M+ in aggregate of funding with collective valuations of $900M+. The companies are: Audette ( – (Vancouver, British Columbia): Turning decarbonization from a cost center to a strategic competitive advantage Closing Theory ( – (Austin, TX): Closing Theory Studios is unlocking the $200B gaming market with its first mobile game, HouseHunt—a Monopoly-meets-Zillow experience that transforms real home listings into a fun, empire-building challenge Mesh ( – (San Francisco, CA): The first global crypto payments network enabling real-time, seamless crypto payments on anything from retail to rent Trust & Will ( – (San Diego, CA): Digitizing and democratizing estate planning for families while empowering enterprises to support clients and employees WarrantyHive ( – (American Fork, UT): Manage facility warranties easier, faster and smarter with AI Work& ( – (Houston, TX): Work is more than just getting a job done – Work& provides legally-compliant lactation and wellness solutions to seamlessly integrate work, parenthood, and wellbeing on the job "We celebrate this class as our 21st Moderne Passport cohort, having guided over 150 startups through our program. Our program unlocks new distribution channels by leveraging our extensive network of industry partners who are excited to work with these innovative startups," notes Carolyn Kwon, Moderne Ventures' Head of Platform. Moderne Ventures accepts Passport applications on a rolling basis with the next class launching in May. About Moderne Ventures Moderne Ventures is a strategic venture capital and growth equity firm with a 17-year track record, generating top tier returns across five funds. Moderne is a generalist investor with vertical expertise with a particular focus on technologies like Enterprise SaaS, AI, Robotics, Deep Tech, Sustainability, and Data and Digital Transaction Management and targets technologies that can apply to both Moderne's core industries and expand beyond them to deliver outsized venture returns. Moderne's 'secret sauce' is bringing Customers to its Portfolio Companies. Moderne has built an extraordinary network of over 1,500 executives and corporations within multi trillion-dollar industries ripe for innovation and disruption, including real estate, finance, insurance, and sustainability. Through Moderne Passport, an industry immersion program, Moderne programmatically connects its portfolio to its industry network to help generate growth for the portfolio and outsized returns to investors. Moderne operates both early-stage and late-stage Venture Funds and the Moderne Passport, designed to foster innovation, partnership and growth between industry partners and emerging technology companies. Moderne has invested in ~50 companies with additional equity stakes in ~150 Passport companies across five funds, and has built a stellar track record through investing in companies like DocuSign, ICON, Measurabl, Proof, Caribou, Porch, and Xeal. CONTACT: Carolyn Kwon, carolyn@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Moderne Ventures
