Saskatoon software company Cadence has been accepted into the Google for Startups Accelerator program

Rachel Drew says she discovered how the estate administration process was “fragmented and broken” when her mother died in 2014.

“After you lose a loved one, you go to the funeral home. Often times we get a sort of list of all the many things you need to do. If we think about a person’s entire life, every account they have, everything , including their passport, their driver’s license, everything they have acquired throughout their life must be dealt with when they die,” she told CTV News.

“And then people are faced with that when they’re in the depths of grief, which makes an already convoluted and difficult process even more difficult.”

Rachel Drew is the founder and CEO of Cadence, a real estate software platform. (Submitted)

Rachel Drew is the founder and CEO of Cadence, a real estate software platform. (Submitted)

She then started a software company, named Cadence, to guide people through these administrative matters.

“Fortunately, I had a wonderful team of people who decided to join me in this initiative, who are way smarter than me and really great at their jobs. And here we are now building Cadence to help people after the loss of a loved one.”

Chief Technology Officer Krystian Olszanski said the company had implemented a system that could automatically determine which forms apply to each family, a “complex” task.

“Our aspirations are to be fully automated and integrate with governments and large organizations so that none of these families have to do the work themselves. They shouldn’t. There should be no forms to complete, we should just take care of everything for them.”

Marketing coordinator Kayleigh Feschuk’s boyfriend Jacob Leight was one of 16 killed in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash.

“I just thought life as I know it is ending,” Feschuk said, recalling when she heard the news.

After Leight died, Feschuk watched his mother deal with the logistics of canceling his bank account, driver’s license and passport.

“A passport is not just a document, it’s a travel opportunity that has been underutilized,” Feschuk said.

GOOGLE ACCELERATOR

Cadence is also the first Saskatchewan company to be accepted into the Google for Startups Accelerator program, which offers mentorship, training and technical support.

“As a startup of our size, it’s really easy to take care of a lot of things that might be short-term, instead of trying to focus on the big picture and follow our vision. We hope so that will be one of the things they can help us with,” Olszanski said.

They also hope their participation in the program will bring more spotlight to tech companies in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan.

“It’s getting better, but there are a lot of people I meet outside of Saskatchewan or especially in the United States, and I think there’s a huge assumption that we’re just doing ag tech here. , so anything related to agriculture,” Olszanski said. mentioned.

“Companies like Vendasta and 7shifts definitely help us stand out from the crowd and prove that there are other ideas that are born in Saskatchewan and are being developed globally. So it’s getting better. I think We still have a long way to go, but yes, we will get there.”

–With files by Stacey Hein