An Indian American father-daughter duo in Texas have launched a platform that helps with the organization of all paperwork following the loss of a loved one.
The idea of Clocr, founded by Apoorva Chintala and her father Sree Chintala, came about following the death of Apoorva’s grandfather, when the family was left with all the important papers, but no information of his last wishes.
The Chintalas created Clocr, a cloud locker that provides an all-in-one platform where users can organize and store online accounts, manage beneficiaries, store and share important documents, and pass on messages to loved ones.
“The idea for Clocr came after my grandfather's death in 2015. My father had to go back to India to deal with the aftermath and guess what my grandfather's last wishes were,” Apoorva told India-West. “We realized this was a very common situation and officially launched Clocr in 2018 to help people consolidate and protect their legacy and last wishes.”
Both Apoorva, who is also a third-year student at the University of Texas at Austin studying management information systems and economics, and her father Sree believe that technology can be used to address age-old problems, and hope to use the latest technologies to modernize the legacy planning industry.
To date, Clocr has in excess of 1,100 people who have signed up for the platform. Additionally, Clocr has a pilot program it is running with several financial planners and estate lawyers.
For Apoorva and Sree, Clocr has also brought them together, partnering to launch this platform.
“It's definitely given us more opportunities to spend time together, especially for my dad and I,” she told India-West.
“Deciding to work on Clocr together was a no-brainer. It was definitely a learning process to navigate our relationship, but we have become closer because of it.
“Being a father-daughter team as absolutely been one of our strengths, since we know each other’s strengths, weaknesses and communication styles' very well,” Apoorva added.
The Clocr co-founder noted that the response to the platform has been extremely positive. The company recently concluded a crowdfunding campaign on Republic and reached its goal inside of two months, with over 700 investors contributing $250,000 to the company.
On the crowdfunding site, some of the investors praised the concept of Clocr.
"Clocr will be a disruptive game changer in their industry. I'm an early investor in digital assets so I am personally familiar with the concern of how to leave my digital assets to my family when I pass away. Clocr's innovative way of securing our digital estates looks very promising to me," one investor noted.
Another investor added: "During my time as a financial advisor and now as a financial consultant, I've seen firsthand the heartache that clients face when not only do they lose a loved one but they have to deal with the emotional and physical stress of having to search for financial documents, insurance policies and more. With our world becoming more digitized daily, Clocr provides a platform to streamline an already emotionally difficult and draining process."
Outside of the funds raised in the Republic campaign, Clocr in December raised $360,000 in a seed funding round, accumulating those funds from friends, family and angel investors.
Apoorva noted that, from the interest in the crowdfunding campaign, they are in the process of increasing the goal there, since there was so much interest.
Looking at the future of Clocr, Apoorva told India-West that in the near future, they want to help educate consumers and professionals on the importance of passing on a digital legacy. Long term, she said, they hope to help a billion families prepare for the unexpected and emergencies.
Apoorva will be able to shift all her focus on reaching these goals once she wraps up her education at UT-Austin. She intends to work full time once she receives her degree.
“I also want to be able to grow Clocr's platform and my platform big enough to be able to give back to my local community and other female entrepreneurs,” she said. “There is a lot of work to be done on a local, national, and global scale in entrepreneurship and supporting communities in general, and I would love to use my resources and platform to be able to help address it.”
