Prismm, founded in 2020 by sisters Martha Underwood and Shella Sylla, both with decades of experience in banking and finance, helps banks retain inherited assets by making the transfer to heirs less complicated. The product embeds beneficiary and estate planning tools directly into bank accounts, so that when an account holder dies, assets can move to family members without the scrambling families often face.
The idea stems from the founders' own experience. Their father was hospitalized in 2017 after a fall during cleanup following Hurricane Irma in Miami, and their mother, who had relied on him to handle finances and paperwork, did not know where important documents and financial information were kept. The sisters did not know either. Their father recovered, but the experience stayed with them.
The concept took fuller shape three years later when Underwood was working at a bank during the COVID-19 pandemic. She saw families arrive after a loved one had died, struggling to locate accounts, understand bills, and support the surviving spouse.
"That's when it hit us that this is an infrastructure problem," Underwood told TechCrunch. "We've created all of these platforms for wealth growth and tracking, but almost nothing for transition. It's still very much all manual. And that's when we said, 'We can digitize this process.'"
Prismm was presenting its mission today on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, one of the tech industry's major startup showcases.