Mortuaries get a modern-day makeover

When window shopping in a city, it’s often an aesthetic storefront that captures your attention and pulls you inside.

But what if the handcrafted vase that caught your eye was actually an urn for human remains?

That’s the business model for the crop of trendy, modernized mortuaries popping up around the world, per The New York Times.

Pretty enough to be spas or nightclubs, these new mortuaries bring some levity to customers looking for something different. In a Co-Op Funeralcare study of 4k people in the UK, 68% said they see funerals as celebrations of life, not sad occasions.

• Exit Here, a London funeral home, has urns made from salvaged wood, sleek coffins, and modern interior design.
• Sparrow in New York houses a gift shop that sells candles and condolence cards and two “celebration rooms” for memorial services.
• Poppy’s in London provides lilac-colored EVs to transport the deceased.
• Altima’s 40+ funeral homes in Spain are designed by architecture firm Batlleiroig to look like art galleries.

These new mortuary models are tapping into a lucrative industry: The average funeral costs ~$6.6k in London, while the median cost of a US funeral is $8.3k.

Back from the dead

It’s not just funeral homes — death is having a moment…

… largely thanks to increased acceptance from younger consumers. Most (68%) or Gen Zers strongly agree that it’s important to hold a funeral or memorial service for a loved one, compared to 44% of baby boomers.

This has fueled the $126B death tech industry and an ever-growing group of startups innovating new solutions:

• Death doulas are becoming increasingly commonplace to provide end-of-life care to the dying and their loved ones.
• Apps like Cake, Lantern, and Empathy offer tools to assist with the logistical side of death, from funeral planning checklists to closing credit cards.

And, of course, there are companies trying to put this whole industry out of business by nixing death altogether.

Tomorrow Biostasis and Cradle Healthcare Co. are chipping away at cryogenic tech to wake the dead.