2023-10-27 08:02:36
A start-up in the highly codified and regulated funeral services sector. This is the challenge taken up by Clémentine Piazza, a young entrepreneur who, after studying at HEC, became marketing director at Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, the world leader in commercial real estate. It was in the mid-2010s that she decided to launch her own company, which was initially just an online platform to communicate information about funerals and collect tributes.
Quickly, the business leader wants to go further, and shake up the codes of a sector dominated by two great historical leaders, PFG (Pompes Funèbres Générales) and Roc’Eclerc, particularly in large cities. After raising funds from Eurazeo and BNP Paribas-Cardif, Clémentine Piazza decided in 2020 to offer a complete funeral service, with inmemori houses in several cities. A few days before All Saints’ Day, she answered questions from 20 Minutes.
Your company inmemori was launched in 2016. You explained at the time that you wanted to break with “archaism” in the funeral sector. What does that mean ?
In France, we legally have six days to organize a funeral following a death, it’s very short, and I was quite shocked that there was no digital service to communicate information about funerals , and bring together loved ones as soon as possible. There are apps for birthdays, for holidays, but they don’t work for the time of goodbye, which involves a sober and dignified way of speaking to each other. This is why I initially created an online tribute service which allows funeral information to be communicated quickly and to bring together tributes and memories from all the loved ones of the deceased.
Why do you want to collect tributes?
When I helped my best friend who was dealing with a personal tragedy and organized the funeral for her, I was frustrated to see that many beautiful testimonies were shared, but scattered between the phones, and ultimately the putting it together was difficult. I therefore wanted to provide the loved ones of the deceased with a dedicated, intimate space, which allows everyone to express themselves, via a secure digital space whose link is transmitted to each other. This was an opportunity to discuss with thousands of families, who told us of two observations: the first is that funeral prices are excessively expensive, the second is that the support on the farewell time does not always live up to their expectations. This got us started and we went further in supporting families by becoming a funeral company.
Where are you today?
We moved from a digital service to a personal service, with the opening of funeral homes in different cities, because people need to be reassured in these moments. We opened our first house in 2020 in Bordeaux, then in Paris where we now have three, as well as in Rennes, Nantes and Lyon. We only set up in large cities, where the market is shared only between the two major historical players in the funeral industry, so this is where there is a need for an alternative. Our goal is to open around twenty inmemori houses in major cities within two to three years. On the other hand, we do not intend to develop in more rural areas, where there are still independent players close to families.
How do your inmemori houses look?
Each time we are located in the heart of the city, because I did not want us to end up in front of the cemetery or the university hospital… We are not in a shop open to the street, we welcome the bereaved in intimate spaces on the upper floor of historic buildings, with an entire environment dedicated to calming people. We receive families in small rooms, without visible funeral objects, because we take them out, in an appropriate manner, as the discussion progresses according to the rites and wishes of each person. We don’t display the coffins either, because it’s a product that is difficult to see, so instead of having showrooms, we present our coffins in miniature format with several wood samples. And we only have two models, to simplify the offer.
What is the average funeral price today in France, and how do you compare?
The average in France is 5,000 euros, we are at 3,500 euros [une enquête menée en 2019 par UFC-Que choisir faisait état d’un coût moyen de 3.815 euros pour une inhumation, et de 3.986 euros pour une crémation, avec « de très grandes variations de prix » entre les différents opérateurs étudiés]. And at inmemori, the coffin costs around 1,000 euros, which is much cheaper than the market average [dans la même enquête, UFC-Que choisir a relevé des prix allant de 490 euros à 1.576 euros, pour un même cercueil en chêne simple]. This is not a low cost posture, it is respect for fair prices.
What is the share of cremations today in France?
Cremation accounts for about 50%. It is practiced very regularly by the secular community, from time to time by the Christian community – it is a fairly common practice among Protestants – and very rarely if not never among Jews and Muslims. Religious ceremonies represent 50 to 60% of burials – 60% in the countryside, 50% in mainland France. In total, we experience 650,000 deaths in France per year, a figure that is increasing, since the generation which is reaching the end of life today is the generation born just after the Second World War, where there were many births.
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