Prismm Brings Estate Planning Into Bank Accounts to Help Banks Keep Inherited Money

Founded in 2020 by sisters Martha Underwood and Shella Sylla, Prismm grew from a family emergency. In 2017, their father was hospitalized after he fell while helping clear a tree from a neighbor's roof following Hurricane Irma in Miami. Their mother had relied on him to handle finances and paperwork, and neither she nor the daughters knew where the important documents and financial information were. Their father recovered, but the experience stayed with them.

Underwood said the idea took clearer shape three years later, when she was working at a bank during the COVID-19 pandemic. She watched families come in after a loved one died, searching for accounts, trying to understand bills and seeking ways to support a surviving spouse. "That's when it hit us that this is an infrastructure problem," Underwood told TechCrunch. She said the financial industry has built many platforms for wealth growth and tracking, but almost nothing for transition. "It's still very much all manual. And that's when we said, 'We can digitize this process.'"

With Prismm, account holders can give designated family members access to accounts and documents ahead of time. After the account holder dies, the designated person can log in, see assets and documents in one place, and begin eligible beneficiary transfers digitally. Because identity, consent and supporting documents are already on file, the process can be completed remotely, including when family members live in different states.

The company has two central products and a third in development. Prismm Designate lets banks offer customers a digital way to update beneficiaries, with the aim of making beneficiary updates faster and easier for customers and banks. Prismm Anchor gives account holders a secure place to track accounts, documents, property and other assets across multiple institutions, with controlled access for designated people. It is offered through financial institutions, so users do not need a separate consumer app. Prismm Continuity, coming soon, will guide staff and families step by step through the transfer process. The startup says this will keep the hardest part of the process within the institution rather than putting the burden on families.

Underwood described existing market options as consumer-based. She said asking consumers to manage estate documents alongside everything else on their lists often means it becomes the last task they complete, especially for women, who she said are typically caregivers and often handle these issues after a death. Prismm therefore integrates directly into bank cores to reduce friction, she said.

Underwood and Sylla describe Prismm as infrastructure that helps banks handle what happens when a customer dies. They say financial institutions lose billions in deposits every year to "estate attrition," when heirs move inherited money to other institutions because banks have no system for managing the transition of accounts after a death. Instead of losing those accounts, banks can use beneficiary information and simpler inheritance processes to keep assets, and potentially the next generation of customers, within their institution, the founders say.

"We will be the infrastructure that financial institutions use to move money to the next generation," Underwood said. "We don't only understand that you execute on the back end. We understand that you need to be proactive and build relationships with the next generation of consumers on the front end."

Prismm is among the startups and investors gathered in San Francisco this week for TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield competition.