Lauren Kolodny Invests in AI to Transform Estate Processing
▼ Summary
– Lauren Kolodny, a partner at Acrew Capital, was the only VC to invest in Chime in 2016, backing it with a $9 million Series A extension when others doubted its potential.
– Chime’s recent public valuation of $14.5 billion validated Kolodny’s early bet on its mission to serve the working class with financial services.
– Kolodny led a $20 million Series A investment in Alix, an AI-driven startup automating the complex and time-consuming estate settlement process.
– Alix’s founder, Alexandra Mysoor, was inspired to create the platform after spending 900 hours manually settling her friend’s late mother’s estate.
– Kolodny sees Alix as a pioneer in using AI to democratize financial and administrative services, historically accessible only to the wealthy.
Lauren Kolodny, a seasoned venture capitalist known for her early backing of fintech giant Chime, is now turning her attention to AI-driven solutions for estate processing. As a partner at Acrew Capital, she has built a reputation for identifying transformative technologies that simplify financial services for everyday consumers. Her latest investment, a $20 million Series A round in startup Alix, aims to modernize the cumbersome estate settlement process through artificial intelligence.
Kolodny’s track record speaks for itself. In 2016, she was the sole investor willing to bet on Chime when others doubted its potential to serve underbanked workers. That decision proved prescient when the neobank went public last month with a staggering $14.5 billion valuation. Now, she’s applying the same foresight to Alix, a platform designed to tackle the bureaucratic nightmare of settling estates.
The inspiration behind Alix came from founder Alexandra Mysoor’s personal struggle to manage her best friend’s late mother’s affairs. What should have been a straightforward process turned into an 18-month ordeal involving hundreds of hours spent chasing paperwork, canceling accounts, and navigating opaque financial systems. “It’s shockingly archaic,” Mysoor noted. “Families dealing with loss shouldn’t have to wrestle with outdated processes on top of their grief.”
Alix’s AI-powered platform streamlines tasks like document scanning, form completion, and communication with financial institutions, work that traditionally requires expensive legal assistance. By automating these steps, the startup reduces both time and costs for families. Pricing starts at 1% of an estate’s value, with fees capped at $9,000 to $12,000 for estates under $1 million.
Kolodny sees this as part of a broader shift. “AI has the power to democratize services once reserved for the wealthy,” she explained. With an estimated $30 trillion set to transfer to younger generations in the coming decades, the need for efficient, accessible estate solutions has never been greater. While competitors like Empathy offer partial support, Alix stands out by handling the entire process from start to finish.
For Kolodny, the investment isn’t just about financial returns, it’s about solving a deeply personal pain point. “This is exactly the kind of messy, overlooked problem technology should address,” she said. As AI continues reshaping industries, her bet on Alix could mark another milestone in making complex financial processes simpler and more equitable for all.
(Source: TechCrunch)
