LumenUs Launches AI Platform To Ease Grief Paperwork

Sara Tashakorinia founded LumenUs last year to take over the paperwork that follows a death, a decision rooted in her own experience after her husband died in a car accident eight years earlier, according to a profile published by TechCrunch on Oct. 9, 2026. Settling a loved one's affairs takes roughly 570 hours of administrative work on average, the outlet reported, citing Tashakorinia.

What prompted Tashakorinia to build LumenUs?

Tashakorinia spent years volunteering to help other grieving families navigate the same process she had to learn alone. That work led her to believe artificial intelligence could handle the administrative load — tax forms, insurance claims, bank account closures — without touching the emotional work of grieving itself, she told TechCrunch.

"The day your loved one passes away, you also get this honorary badge of a project manager for a project you had no idea about, trying to navigate something and learn something when you literally have zero information," Tashakorinia said, according to the report.

How does the platform help grieving families?

Users onboard by answering detailed questions about their legal and financial circumstances, which LumenUs uses to personalize a task list, Tashakorinia told TechCrunch. The platform then sorts obligations by urgency, separating what needs to happen immediately from what can wait. "We are using AI to automate as much as we can to save time during this process, and give it back to [users]," she said.

The company's initial focus is the immediate aftermath of a death rather than the longer grieving process, though Tashakorinia said she hopes to expand LumenUs to support users over time, per the report.

Who is building the product?

Tashakorinia's background is in cybersecurity — relevant given how much sensitive financial and personal data the platform collects, according to TechCrunch. Her co-founders are Sajad Mirzaei, a former engineer at Google and Box, and Larry Keeley, an innovation scientist, professor and entrepreneur, the outlet reported.

What funds are families missing?

One stated goal of the platform is surfacing money grieving families don't know they're owed. Billions of dollars in life insurance benefits go unclaimed each year because beneficiaries never learn the funds exist, according to the TechCrunch report. LumenUs is designed to flag those claims during onboarding rather than leave families to stumble onto them independently.

What else did Tashakorinia say about the current process?

Tashakorinia described the broader system families encounter after a death as uneven, telling TechCrunch: "I think going through it, your threshold of pain is so high, and you're so lost that you don't really realize, why do people treat you this way? Why was I left with a stack of paperwork, and why was the funeral home charging me a 300% markup on a casket?"

What's next for LumenUs?

TechCrunch reported that Tashakorinia's team is also consulting with outside advisers as it builds out the platform, though specifics on funding, pricing or launch timing beyond the 2026 founding were not detailed in the report. The company's near-term plan remains centered on the immediate paperwork burden rather than long-term grief support, according to the article.

For the original reporting and additional detail on LumenUs's roadmap, see TechCrunch's Oct. 9, 2026 profile.