When Donnell Beverly Jr. decided to launch Leand-of-Life Planning startup Eazewell after losing both his parents, he knew exactly who to call to help launch his business: longtime friend, nine-time NBA All-star Russell Westbrook.
“How does the main paper with Russ across all the businesses he touches have on people?” Beverly Jr. (pictured above) told TechCrunch. “He’s been very vocal about it throughout his career. I always say we’ve had a really personal pain and then we’ve created a platform to really help people.”
Westbrook was there. Former four-time NBA All-Star Kemba Walker also joined, and the trio launched Eazewell.
Eazewell is an AI-driven platform that helps families navigate and automate the administrative aspects of their end-of-life and funeral planning. Startup AI agents provide people with 7-day resources, 24 hours a day, and help everyone, from finding and booking funeral homes to canceling deceased credit card accounts.
The company partners with a variety of service providers, including hospice care, funeral homes, and various insurance companies, so the platform is at your disposal with options that pay more premium features.
“I had the opportunity to get close to his family and go through the process with (Beverly Jr.),” Westbrook told TechCrunch. “He did an amazing job of idealizing this idea and bringing it back to life. I’m excited to be a partner with him.”
Beverly Jr. said he got the idea for Easewell after losing his parents in a short period of time. By navigating what happened after their deaths, he realized how much of a burden the end-of-life process is, and how fragmented the market for these services is.
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He added that seeing recent advances in AI, he recognized that technology could help reduce the number of administrative tasks his family needs to tackle after death.
“While we’ve been seeing how AI has impacted our lives while we’re here, and you know now we’re in a space that affects our lives after death,” Beverly Jr. said.
Eazewell was founded in 2024. The company said it can support more than 100,000 families since launching its platform earlier this year.
Currently, Eazewell is deploying a new enterprise platform for hospice companies, senior living facilities and life insurance companies. This allows businesses to fold Eazewell’s automated features into their own management software.
In the future, Eazwell hopes to help people manage the digital assets of their loved ones after they pass.
“The average person has between 70 and 100 active digital accounts at any time,” Beverly Jr. said. “Your family has inherited all your digital accounts and digital assets as well. That’s not typical. We’re stepping into a new kind of territory within it. Looking at the entire landscape, there’s an epic opportunity to not only help people, but make it even more seamless.”
For Westbrook, Eazewell can use his platform to amplify businesses that help people, especially those in a lack of material communities, navigate this painful and costly experience, while offering a great opportunity to enter the business with decades of friends.
“Whenever you name anything, you open the door, build trust and think it’s important, so you try to play a big role in it and find a way to exist,” Westbrook said. “And this isn’t about me, and it’s by no means very technical, but even more importantly, finding ways for families to help them through losses, and for me it’s easy to use my platform to do that.”
