When a bank customer dies, financial institutions must navigate a complicated process involving account transfers, beneficiary claims, and communication with surviving family members. Yet much of that work still relies on paper forms, emails, and manual coordination between departments, creating administrative burdens and putting valuable customer relationships at risk.
Prismm, a Delaware-based fintech company founded in 2021, is working to modernize that process. Operating under Wunderwood Corporation, Prismm has developed what it calls "estate orchestration infrastructure," a technology platform that helps community banks, regional banks, and credit unions automate inheritance-related workflows while maintaining relationships with beneficiaries.
For Founder and CEO Martha Underwood, the company's mission is both technological and personal: helping financial institutions manage generational wealth transitions more efficiently while giving grieving families greater clarity and continuity. This approach has earned Prismm recognition as a 2026 Honoree in the Tech Innovators category of the CO—100 Awards.
[Read more: Meet the 2026 CO—100 Honorees]
Bringing estate administration into the digital age
Prismm integrates inheritance infrastructure into financial institutions’ existing banking systems. Its Designate product addresses a critical gap in deposit retention: a bank may serve a customer for decades without ever building a relationship with the people who will inherit that customer’s money.
By bringing beneficiary capture and engagement into the banking experience, beginning at account opening, Designate helps institutions identify and connect with their next generation of customers before an inheritance occurs. That creates an opportunity to earn beneficiaries’ trust and future business while the original customer relationship is still active.
Through open banking connectivity and core system integrations, Prismm also coordinates activities that traditionally require employees to communicate across multiple departments. The goal is to make inheritance a core banking experience, connecting beneficiary relationships established today with the financial transitions that follow.
“Banks spend decades earning a customer’s trust, yet the people who will inherit that customer’s money are often strangers to them,” explained Underwood. “We built Designate to help banks know the next generation before the next generation inherits.”
That distinction is central to Prismm's business model. Instead of measuring success through application downloads or document storage, the company focuses on helping banks retain deposits, maintain beneficiary relationships, and reduce administrative friction during estate transitions.
Banks spend decades earning a customer’s trust, yet the people who will inherit that customer’s money are often strangers to them. We built Designate to help banks know the next generation before the next generation inherits.Martha Underwood, Founder and CEO, Prismm
[Read more: How a Fintech Founder Secured Celebrity Investors for Goalsetter]
Turning a technology concept into banking infrastructure
One of Prismm's greatest early challenges was convincing financial institutions to prioritize a problem they hadn't traditionally measured. While banks had established systems for fraud prevention, payments, and onboarding, estate administration was often treated as a back-office responsibility rather than a strategic issue.
Underwood responded by developing a business case around deposit retention. She published “The Death of Deposits” in April 2026, created a financial model demonstrating the potential return on estate orchestration investments, and filed patents related to the company's technology.
"That reframe changed everything," Underwood said. "Conversations stopped being about a product and started being about a board-level deposit retention strategy."
Prismm's first major validation came through Renasant Bank, a publicly traded regional bank. The company worked with Renasant's leadership and operational teams to understand existing beneficiary management, inheritance processing, and customer communication workflows. It then configured its technology to meet the bank's operational and compliance requirements, beginning with a focused pilot before expanding the deployment.
That successful relationship helped Prismm secure an agreement with Jack Henry, a major core banking technology provider. The integration agreement covers three core banking systems, positioning Prismm to reach thousands of community banks and credit unions through a single distribution partner.
The company's pipeline now includes more than 40 financial institutions, and it has secured institutional investment from Bronze Valley alongside a $1 million SSBCI direct co-investment.
[Read more: A Guide to Small Business Banking | CO- by US Chamber of Commerce]
Using AI to anticipate the next generation of banking needs
Prismm's next phase of innovation focuses on making estate administration more proactive through artificial intelligence and deeper system integrations.
The company is developing Prismm Lens, an AI-powered estate readiness intelligence layer designed to help banks identify customer relationships and deposits potentially at risk during generational wealth transfers. By analyzing factors such as customer age, life events, and beneficiary relationships, the technology aims to help institutions strengthen connections before an estate transition occurs.
Prismm also plans to expand its automation capabilities to coordinate beneficiary disbursements, asset transfers, and relationship management across banking, wealth management, and trust systems.
These investments are intended to address a significant long-term opportunity as an estimated $124 trillion in wealth changes hands between generations over the next two decades.
For Underwood, however, technological efficiency is only one measure of success. The company's work also has a human dimension, particularly for families navigating the loss of a loved one.
"The financial metrics tell us we're building a real business; the human metrics tell us we're building the right one," she said.
By embedding estate orchestration directly into banking infrastructure, Prismm is demonstrating how technology can address an overlooked operational challenge while helping financial institutions preserve both assets and relationships during some of their customers' most difficult moments.
[View the full 2026 CO—100 list]
CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.
