Prismm, a startup presenting this week at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, wants to make inherited money stick at the bank where it was held. The company builds beneficiary and estate planning tools directly into bank accounts, giving designated family members early access to documents and assets and letting them complete eligible transfers digitally after the account holder dies.
Founders Martha Underwood and Shella Sylla, sisters with decades in banking and finance, say the idea came from personal experience: after their father was hospitalized in 2017, their mother did not know where key financial documents were. Underwood later saw families scrambling at a bank during the pandemic and concluded that the industry focused on wealth growth but almost nothing on wealth transition.
Prismm currently offers two products — Prismm Designate and Prismm Anchor — with a third, Prismm Continuity, in development. The company argues that banks lose billions to “estate attrition” because heirs often move their inheritance elsewhere, and that embedding these tools into bank infrastructure reduces friction at a painful moment while keeping both the assets and the next generation of customers in-house.