Specialist deceased estate administration platform estateXchange has secured $12.5 million in seed funding from a swag of rich-listers as well as Macquarie Group (ASX: MQG) as the Melbourne-based startup looks to tackle one of the most outdated areas of financial services.

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The first capital raise by the company has been supported by Macquarie Capital, OIF Ventures and rich lister Paul Little's family office, with backing also coming from angels Carol Schwartz and Christine Christian.

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Founded in 2023 by Sarah Poole and Marielle Yeoh, who between them have decades of experience in the space with respective careers at National Australia Bank (ASX: NAB) and PEXA Group (ASX: PXA), estateXchange aims to take the complexity out of deceased estate administration by digitising estate management.
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The online platform connects estate representatives, such as lawyers, with financial institutions ranging from banks and share registries to superannuation funds, which the founders say replaces a “fragmented, administratively burdensome process with a secure and simple platform”.

"EstateXchange is bringing long-overdue modernisation to one of the most outdated parts of financial services,” says Isabella Rich, investor at OIF Ventures.

“Marielle and Sarah's deep sector expertise and the team's early execution made a strong impression on us.

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“With clear early traction and a solution that solves an industry-wide pain point, we're excited to back estateXchange to modernise deceased estate administration processes at scale.”

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Poole and Yeoh, the co-CEOs of the startup, have been friends since high school and have shared career experiences in the field of deceased estate administration.

Poole has more than two decades of experience in the legal, financial services and government sectors, and before founding estateXchange, she was head of deceased estate services at NAB.

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Yeoh, who also worked at ANZ Banking Group (ASX: ANZ) and NAB, was one of PEXA's longest-serving executives, helping grow the property settlement company from a start-up to a $3 billion ASX-listed business.

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Both say they have experienced firsthand the frustrations of administering a deceased estate – namely duplicate paperwork for simple processes such as verifying death certificates, weeks of waiting for funds to be transferred and a lack of coordination between institutions.

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"There's genuine desire among organisations to enhance the way deceased estates and related claims are administered,” says Poole.

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“Technology is a feature of the solution, but an ecosystem approach is what will ultimately deliver a step-change."

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“We exist to take the complexity out of deceased estate administration, for institutions and for professional representatives; and ultimately for families experiencing bereavement."

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The platform is said to offer a streamlined solution for navigating deceased estate administration, including document sharing, verification and stakeholder collaboration.

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EstateXchange notes that under the current system, when someone dies, a professional representative must submit the same documents separately to every institution where the deceased had an asset or service. This process remains manual, error-prone and vulnerable to fraud.

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According to a 2025 Deloitte Access Economics report, the average deceased person has 37 assets and/or service provider accounts.

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Deceased estate and death benefit claims management has recently been scrutinised by regulators including the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Banking Code Compliance Committee, which have highlighted delays in processing, poor communication with executors and beneficiaries, and compliance gaps.

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EstateXchange says it helps institutions respond to this scrutiny by “setting a new benchmark for what good looks like”.

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The platform has been developed through extensive consultation with stakeholders to ensure it meets the demands of today's financial, legal and regulatory landscapes.

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Rather than adopting a SaaS (software-as-a-service) model, the startup is positioned as a pay-per-transaction business with no upfront joining fee and no recurring subscription or membership fees.

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EstateXchange says its customers are businesses such as professional estate representatives who administer estates, and institutions where the deceased held assets or services.

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"We were immediately impressed by co-founders Marielle and Sarah, who bring deep sector expertise and have already demonstrated they can execute strongly,” says Dan Phillips, executive director of venture capital at Macquarie Group.

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“The estateXchange proposition resonated strongly given our early-stage involvement with PEXA and the clear parallels in how both platforms streamline processes in their respective industries.”