Hiya Divorce, a startup whose platform facilitates low-cost do-it-yourself and attorney-assisted divorces, has raised $3.25 million in an oversubscribed seed spherical to allow it to develop a broader vary of instruments and providers to cowl your entire divorce lifecycle, together with the monetary and different points that come up within the wake of a divorce.
The funding was led by The Artemis Fund, which invests in feminine founders who’re modernizing and diversifying wealth. The spherical contains capital from current pre-seed buyers Lightbank, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, Gaingels, CEAS Investments and Jack Newton, CEO and cofounder of Clio, and from new buyers CMFG Ventures Discovery Fund, Pitbull Ventures, Chaos Ventures, and Sand Hill Angels.
Hiya Divorce founder Erin Levine
In an interview earlier this week, Erin Levine, the divorce legal professional who based Hiya Divorce and is now its CEO, mentioned that Hiya Divorce will use this funding to allow it to go deeper into the divorce lifecycle, to assist prospects not simply by the authorized course of, but additionally with the monetary, actual property and insurance coverage points they face within the wake of a divorce.
“We need to create instruments and providers that not solely assist with the authorized a part of a divorce, however that may be a bridge to monetary independence and emotional well-being,” Levine mentioned.
To do that, the corporate will additional develop its platform to incorporate a brand new module, Hiya Subsequent Chapter, that may embrace services and products designed to assist prospects with points corresponding to credit score restore, retirement planning, insurance coverage, actual property purchases and gross sales, and extra.
It’s also growing direct-to-consumer state little one assist calculators that it’ll launch throughout the subsequent six months.
Levine mentioned that 88% of Hiya Divorce’s prospects keep engaged with the corporate after their divorces, utilizing its sources as a bridge to the subsequent chapter of their lives. For them, that always means dividing retirement, getting new insurance coverage, updating little one assist and co-parenting agreements, studying new monetary literacy, and discovering new group assist.
“We’re excited to not solely construct on our current platform for the two million individuals who get divorced every year, however to curate an expertise that gives a lifeline to the 28 million People who’re transitioning out of their marriage and into a greater subsequent chapter,” Levine mentioned.
Alternative to Assist Ladies
Final yr, Hiya Divorce raised a $2 million seed funding to assist it broaden to all 50 states. It presently operates in 5 states — California, Colorado, New York, Texas and Utah — and plans to launch quickly in Florida.
The cash raised within the financing introduced in the present day is not going to go to that 50-state enlargement, Levine mentioned, however relatively to fund the enlargement of the platform and the event of those new instruments and providers.
The cash may even be used to develop a definitive firm playbook for the states it’s already in, with regard to advertising, content material and product, with a purpose to place the corporate to go nationwide with an eventual Collection A financing, Levine mentioned.
The corporate can be presently providing tech-enabled mediation providers within the 5 states by which it operates, and a few of this newest funding will go in direction of increasing that service nationwide.
Levine mentioned that Hiya Divorce is seeing explosive development. Since its launch in 2018, its income has grown one hundred pc yr over yr. The third quarter of this yr introduced document revenues, together with two days in August that every had its highest single-day revenues ever.
Whereas the platform’s prospects are kind of evenly divided between women and men, Levine mentioned that she is worked up concerning the Subsequent Chapter module for its potential to assist girls, who sometimes endure the extra extreme monetary penalties after a divorce.
“What’s most fun to me is the chance to assist girls who weren’t very concerned in funds throughout marriage, to empower girls to not solely make good choices, however truly perceive them and be proactive going ahead,” Levine mentioned.
“Divorce is a transformational life expertise and a big monetary occasion that has lengthy been ignored by innovation and sometimes disadvantages girls,” Leslie Goldman, basic accomplice at lead investor The Artemis Fund mentioned in an announcement. “At its core, Hiya Divorce permits folks to take higher care of themselves and their households throughout and after a divorce, no matter revenue.”
“We led this spherical as a result of we now have excessive conviction within the distinctive expertise and ability set of this workforce to construct the exact instruments wanted to attenuate the monetary and emotional impression of divorce at scale.”
