Ars Moriendi

It's time to reimagine death care

Today's farewell industry isn't providing what grievers need.
As humans, we cannot accept this.
​As business leaders, we cannot afford this.

​At Ars Moriendi, we've decided to act.

Ars Moriendi* is an IP & venture development studio dedicated to transforming death care - in life.

* The Art of Dying. 

A moral duty. A commercial reality

If you are an investor or organisation with an interest in death care and technology, we need to talk.

Within the next decade, €77 billion in annual funeral spend will shift to a new generation. Gen X – and soon Millennials – will not settle for what their parents received. They want agency, meaning, sustainability, and personalisation.
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Yet all around, the industry reassures itself with satisfaction scores of 80–90%. Our research shows these scores hide the truth: families, too overwhelmed and vulnerable to demand more at the time of loss, quietly accept what is offered. Only later do they admit it wasn’t enough – a generic tribute, a poor video, a ceremony that left them with emptiness rather than meaning.

Incremental fixes – a greener coffin, a new app – will not bridge this gap. By the time the discontent is visible in lost trust and falling revenues, it will be too late. Families deserve better goodbyes. And if we don’t create them, others will.

The griever's voice

Gen X comments on funerals in Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, UK, and the US.

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He had such a rich life which got reduced to a bad quality video, a mediocre eulogy and a few songs on a crappy sound system.​

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During the service, I held back my tears. I didn't want to be the only one who was crying.  But honestly, I wanted to scream.

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We couldn't all be at my brother's funeral. But the funeral home didn't know how to do a livestream or VOD solution. I had to arrange it myself.

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With the ceremonial rollercoaster I was so busy talking that I never got a moment to myself. To properly say goodbye.

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You get 2 hours to part with someone you've known your whole life. Everyone is there for the day, and then they all disappear.

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A new way to deal with death

Working with anthropologists, neuroscientists, ethnographers, and experience designers, we have distilled a new funeral code describing what humans really need beyond standardised McFunerals. 

And we have extended this code beyond the funeral itself to include preparing for death, embracing the end in peace, managing grief and remembering.

Making it our mission to transform death care:
  • FROM: being an efficient, standardised, end-of-life industry.
  • TO: infusing our finite life with meaning and humanity.

Looking for partners

We have validated multiple international new IP and venture opportunities.
Technologies, rituals, communities and services which address currently unserved customer needs.

​We have started development, yet we do not want to bring these to market alone.
We want to partner with international investors, service providers, insurers, suppliers, media partners, ...

So if you are an investor or business interested in death care, let's talk
​Combine resources to launch pragmatic propositions, that change the industry. Profitably, at scale.

Who we are

Ars Moriendi is an initiative launched by Tom Wustenberghs, CEO of Pontes, one of Belgium's leading crematorium groups, and Alain Thys, veteran customer-centricity expert and founder of The Transformation Architects.

​By joining forces, they want unite visionary leaders who want to shape the next era of death care—not just in theory, but in real, measurable ways.
Doing what's right can also be what's profitable
​Let's do it together.
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