When Sara Tashakorinia’s husband died in a car accident eight years ago, she found herself drowning in paperwork. The average grieving person is tasked with around 570 hours of administrative work, a burden that can feel like a second job. Enter LumenUs, a grief care platform designed to streamline this process.

Tashakorinia, with a background in cybersecurity, founded LumenUs to help people in the immediate aftermath of a loved one’s passing. The platform asks specific questions to understand the user’s legal, financial and emotional state, then organizes tasks by urgency, helping users decipher what needs to be done immediately and what can wait.

‘When people initially join the platform, they go through an onboarding process in which they share information about the nature of their particular situation. We are using AI to automate as much as we can to save time during this process, and give it back to the users,’ explains Tashakorinia.

While LumenUs will eventually support people throughout the lifelong grieving process, the startup will initially focus on easing the immediate administrative burden. By helping users find insurance claims and unclaimed life insurance benefits, the platform can ease the financial burden of death, which is often overlooked.

Tashakorinia hopes that LumenUs will not only save time but also provide a sense of control during a time of great loss. As she says, ‘Why do people treat you this way? Why was I left with a stack of paperwork, and why was the funeral home charging me a 300% markup on a casket?’