Online platform Closure.nl, for closing subscriptions and accounts after a death, has raised an investment of three tons. The Rotterdammers invest the money in sales and product development.

About 135,000 people die every year in the Netherlands, much more in Europe and worldwide. A large part of them have dozens of subscriptions, contracts and internet accounts. Relatives are sometimes busy for days or weeks to stop all those relationships with companies. Closure.nl wants to become the destination that takes over.

Since last summer funeral insurer Ardanta and KPN have been pointing out the services of the start-up on their respective sites.

“Survivors can only terminate that one account or contract, but also call on us to take over the entire burden”, says one of the founders Graciëlla van Hamersveld. “On average someone has thirty accounts or subscriptions and four contact moments are needed to close them.”

Companies such as KPN and Ardanta pay a monthly fee to the start-up to be able to offer the ‘relief service’.

“Then the next of kin have only one contact moment.”

After a report, Closure requests the name and address details of the deceased person from the survivor and possibly the death certificate and, if necessary, a copy of a passport. This is sufficient to close the most common accounts, from Facebook to water company and from Netflix to magazine to financial service providers.

Both the scalability of the service and the complementary team and the partnerships realized in a short time were reasons for tech investors Janneke Niessen, Kees Jan Rietveld and Lex Geerdes to invest. The investment must make it possible to expand the number of customers in a short time.