A few years ago, Gerstenzang herself he was sitting in the funeral home after his grandfather died. The Gerstenzang family was asked to choose from “Silver, Gold or Platinum” packages. The price was ambiguous, the logistics were overwhelming, and the final result looked like an extraordinary, expensive commodity that didn’t reflect the man his grandfather actually was.
At that time, “you’re in a very difficult situation mentally and emotionally,” Gerstenzang recalled. “Feeling used and then feeling like the person you love isn’t respected the way they should be is not a good feeling.”
This experience left the serial entrepreneur so disillusioned that he felt compelled to offer others in a similar situation higher options. Therefore, in January 2024, he began cooperation with Emmy Gilsanz start a company based in New York Meadow monumentswhich describes itself as a “contemporary funeral home without the house.”
When a person is grieving, making so many decisions about what is often the largest unplanned purchase of many people’s lives might be daunting. Meadow tries to make it so simple as possible by allowing families to arrange funerals over the phone or online. The startup also works with chosen venues so that funerals can happen, for example, in a wedding hall reserved only for Saturday evenings or in a local chapel moderately than in a funeral home.
“Because we use software and aren’t stuck in the old days, we can offer fair prices and unmatched hospitality,” Gerstenzang told Crunchbase News.
Meadow recently raised a $9 million Series A funding round led by: Nice groom AND Haystack, following a $2 million seed round in 2024, Crunchbase News exclusively reported. Interestingly, the founding capital of each Meadow and Moxie got here from the founders’ own capital company, Boulton and Watt, the vehicle they use to run their very own seed rounds.
Lower costs, more software
Meadow works by eliminating the most costly a part of the business: real estate. Meadow says that by ditching physical storefronts and using software for administrative tasks, it will possibly offer dramatically lower prices.
The national average cost of a funeral with viewing and burial in 2023 was $8,300, while the average cost of a funeral with cremation was $6,280, According to down National Funeral Directors Association.
Meadow says its services are much cheaper. According to Gerstenzang, a typical funeral can cost as little as $1,300.
“There are many inscriptions on the coffins [at funeral homes]because of the increased variety of cremations,” he explains. “So a lot of funeral homes really need you to arrange the burial. They want you to do an elaborate service because that is how they make money. There’s a lot of tags in it.”
From fintech to funerals
Gerstenzang is no stranger to scaling complex systems. A graduate of the payments giant Stripewhere he led product teams in consumer payments and, in 2022, co-founded with Gilsanz Moxiwho helps nurses open medicine cabinets. While founding each corporations, Gerstenzang noticed a pattern: highly regulated markets that impact thousands and thousands of people but have not seen significant innovation in many years.
In the funeral industry, he saw a landscape dominated by private equity stakes. He alleges that some large corporations buy up local family funeral homes, keep the original names on the doors to engender false trust, and then quietly raise prices.
Meadow’s business model appears to be working. According to Gerstenzang, the company tripled its revenue from 2024 to 2025 and is on track to triple it again in 2026. He added that in February alone, the company worked with greater than 400 families.
After becoming the largest independent funeral home in California, the company recently expanded into Texas and Washington, with Arizona and five other states on the horizon this yr.
Today, almost a third of Meadow’s business comes from “pre-planning” – from people who, for example, have just undergone the strategy of burying their very own parents and want to spare their children the same burden. It also offers direct cremation or burial, depending on the family’s wishes.
“Fundamentally, we care about the quality of what we do,” Gerstenzang said. “We believe that as we scale, we can actually improve quality because our software allows our team to spend time working directly with customers rather than dealing with paperwork the same way we have for 50 years.”
Samil Shahfounder and general partner at Meadow, investor Haystack noted that his company was also among the first investors in DoorDash AND Instacart.
Supporting “broken and unsexy” industries
“We know when we are dealing with a broken, unattractive industry that is not equipped to serve the modern consumer,” he wrote in an email. “The combination of Meadow’s software with unmatched hospitality is exactly what the bereavement care industry needs and what families deserve.”