25. Settld

Exceptional Founder Shortlisted

In recognition of the entrepreneur who has turned their own personal struggles or challenges into a force-for-good, leading the way for industry change and innovation.

Startups 100: Exceptional Founder Award

Founders: Vicky Wilson, Pierre Martin, and Julie Wilson

Year founded: 2020
Website: settld.care 

After the heartbreak comes the admin. This is the sad truth of dealing with death in the modern age. For families struggling to come to terms with the recent loss of a loved one, it can feel cruel that so much time must be spent on endless calls and emails, notifying various businesses and services that they’ve lost an account holder.

Settld is on a mission to make this aspect of the bereavement process easier and less stressful. Its clever platform automates the process of closing and transferring accounts when someone dies. Its chief claim is that it can turn 20 hours of admin into a 15-minute task. 

Founder Vicky Wilson was inspired to start Settld after her grandmother passed away in 2019. Vicky found herself spending hours contacting banks, pension providers, insurers, and utilities companies to close and transfer her grandmother’s accounts. 

We provide a complete account management solution, from notification to closure, It saves bereaved families and professionals a significant amount of time and hassle

Having realised that the bereavement process was unnecessarily difficult and time-consuming, she decided to build a solution to automate it. 

There was clearly an appetite for such a service. Cofounders Vicky and Julie Wilson launched the Bereavement Standard campaign and, in less than two months, over 93,000 people signed their petition asking service providers to make it easier to close the accounts of a loved one who dies. 

Determined to pursue her business idea, Vicky quit her job at Amazon to launch Settld. “We provide a complete account management solution, from notification to closure,” Vicky says. “It saves bereaved families and professionals a significant amount of time and hassle.”

Settld is free for bereaved people to use – an incredibly welcome pricing model at a time of great personal and bureaucratic stress. The company’s mission, Vicky says, is to “remove all unnecessary admin around death, giving people back the time and space to focus on what matters most.”

Users simply fill in one secure web form and upload a single set of documents. Settld then gathers the necessary details for each company to be notified, contacts organisations simultaneously, chases on delays automatically, and provides a live status dashboard for both the user and all engaged organisations.

Settld removes all unnecessary admin around death, giving people back the time and space to focus on what matters most

Its revenue is based on charging a nominal fee to service providers for assisting with the details of their account closures. The company also offers consultancy services to enterprises on bereavement process improvement.

The platform interfaces with over 950 providers, including banks, credit card companies, TV, mobile and broadband accounts, social media and email providers, and loyalty card schemes. 

In future, it aims to help with further tasks, such as probate applications and services for clearing a home of possessions – making it an essential support for bereaved family members in times of need. The company also plans to expand internationally.

Settld has raised a total of £900,000 in funding to date. This includes a £500,000 seed investment round led by SFC Capital.

With the needs and emotional state of its customers firmly at its heart, we believe Settld has a clear-sighted business that has huge scope to grow. Only two things are certain in this life. Settld may not be sorting taxes, but we can be grateful it has its attention on ‘the other thing’.