‘Full service’ rival to RIP.ie launched after popular memorial site starts charging €100 per notice

Founder Mark Legge says The Solace will offer more than just death notices to those suffering grief

Serial technology entrepreneur Mark Legge, who co-founded gifting firm &Open, has launched a new online death memorial service competing with RIP.ie.

Legge has launched The Solace, an online service dedicated to helping people through grief. The new site will offer traditional obituary services and technology for coordinating funerals and creating online memorials with photos, videos and stories.

For funeral directors, The Solace will also offer tools for publishing death notices, managing RSVPs, coordinating charity donations, and streamlining communication with loved ones. It will also include an e-commerce store where people can buy sympathy cards, care packs and urns.

Legge said The Solace would be available on a tiered basis, with a free membership option ensuring accessibility for all.

The paid tier will cost €75 and offer more “functionality”, such as uploading videos and downloading content.

After RIP.ie’s decision to charge €100 for a death notice to funeral directors, Legge said several competitors had emerged.

However, Legge didn’t necessarily view them as competition for The Solace, given that it offers many different services besides posting death notices.

“They are so different to what we are doing,” he said.

“What they do is they offer the Yellow Pages for death, in terms of you can just find where a funeral is on, and then it ends.

“Grief doesn’t end after three days,” he added, highlighting how The Solace will provide information on funerals like its rivals but will also allow people to RSVP in one place.

Legge said losing his father in 2019 “sowed the seed” for The Solace business.

“That was my first time properly experiencing death and grief, and I just felt that the tools, resources and logistical challenges – and emotional challenges – of all that were quite difficult,” he said.

“I just felt there was a gap in the market for something that brought more of a human touch and a bit more innovation to the space. I didn’t act on it immediately because I was in the throes of building &Open.”

Around 14 months ago, Legge decided to leave &Open, which he founded alongside his brother Jonathan and Ciara Flood in 2017, to work on The Solace venture. He only announced his departure from the gifting platform in September.

Legge said he was already talking with four of Ireland's top five funeral directors.

Legge said the UK and US have been identified as potential markets for The Solace.

For now, Legge will focus on building the Irish business for The Solace, onboarding more funeral directors and getting a sense of what works on the site.

Legge has self-funded The Solace so far, though he hopes to raise a seed round in future. He has plenty of experience when it comes to attracting investment, having helped &Open raise $26m (€25m) in a Series A funding round in June 2022.

“It was super difficult,” he said of leaving &Open. “What I really enjoy is taking an idea and building that from scratch. Taking something small and creating something a little bit bigger.”

Reporting on:independent.ie