Uberflip co-founder secures $1 million to help families pass down valuables with Trusty

After exiting his last tech startup, Randy Frisch has set his sights on a new challenge: helping people ensure their prized possessions reach loved ones.

Frisch previously co-founded and served as president of business-to-business marketing platform Uberflip, which was acquired by fellow Toronto firm PathFactory last summer. Now, he is building a new, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered estate planning app called Trusty.

In an interview with BetaKit, Frisch argued that wills often lack important details and context about the deceased’s personal belongings, including items like art, collectibles, and jewellery. This info is typically included in side “letters of wishes” as wills often become public records after they are validated.

“We should all have a will, but the will is just the beginning.”
Randy Frisch, Trusty

Frisch became acquainted with this issue firsthand when his grandmother passed away at 104, leaving proper will and estate documents but little clarity as to what personal valuables she possessed, how they were acquired, what they were worth, where they were located, and to whom they were supposed to go and why.

With a great wealth transfer expected to occur as Baby Boomers age, and many Canadians still lacking a will, Frisch realized that estate planning for personal assets was becoming a large problem and set to work on tackling this issue with Trusty.

“We’re just not prepared—and that’s not just the will … We should all have a will, but the will is just the beginning, and that’s where we’re going to be that modern letter of wishes,” Frisch argued.

Investors have bought into Frisch and his vision: Trusty has raised $1 million CAD in equity pre-seed financing. The round closed in May and was co-led by Toronto’s Relay Ventures and Graphite Ventures, with support from Ottawa’s Mistral Venture Partners and undisclosed angels. This marks the startup’s first external financing. Frisch declined to share the valuation.

The startup plans to use this funding to continue developing its product, including its AI detection tech (which automatically extracts details from photos of assets) and in-app AI assistant capabilities, and fuel its early go-to-market efforts in Canada and the United States.

Frisch believes there are entrepreneurs better suited to build legal will platforms, citing ClearEstate, Epilogue, and Willful as three examples of Canadian tech startups making inroads on that front. He sees room for Trusty to build a complementary platform and deliver it with help from will creation players and wealth advisory firms.

The CEO views Trusty as a tool that can play a role in helping customers—especially high-net-worth individuals with lots of valuable personal belongings—easily track what they own and where they would like it to go when they die, and provide personalized messages and videos to help explain why.

Frisch also wants Trusty to play a role in storing and understanding those wills using AI to help customers treat their loved ones fairly.

Frisch emphasized that his family, including his wife and three children, are his “number one priority.”

“We have a really great dynamic in our own family,” Frisch said. “I look at all these other stories that I’ve heard since I’ve started this of families who have that, and then it breaks down in this moment of someone passing because the wishes just aren’t clear. Being the organized guy that I am, that’s the stuff I love to solve for.”

Feature image courtesy Trusty.