The $100 Billion Business of Dying: Inside the Booming End-of-Life Industry

When you think about end-of-life care, many people have varying ideas about how it should be handled. As baby boomers get older and the end-of-life conversation starts to happen for millions, it’s understandable that the business of dying is creating a whole new industry. 

With the understanding that you can’t avoid death and taxes, per everyone’s favorite quote, it’s time to think about what exactly the business of dying means. Healthcare itself is already a big business, so it makes all the sense in the world why the business of dying is growing by the billions. 

What Is Driving the Growth? 

Unsurprisingly, at the very heart of this $100 billion business is an aging population. As baby boomers continue to age, there is a growing need for a more comprehensive understanding of end-of-life options. This is especially true in today’s digital age, as the ease with which people can find information online has never been greater, fueling growth all over. 

By 2034, it’s estimated that the valuation of this market will increase from $100 billion to $217 billion, driven by a rise in private equity spending. As nursing homes are acquired and aging funeral home directors lack family successors, private equity money is pouring into this field. 

Private Equity Is Fueling Hospice Growth

At the very center of the business of dying is that of private equity, especially when it comes to hospice care. If you jump back in time to 2011, the number of hospice locations owned by private equity firms numbered only 106. Fast forward to 2021, and this number had jumped by just over 400% as 409 of 5,615 hospice locations were now owned by a private equity firm. 

What’s even more notable is that of these hospice centers that were purchased, 72% of them were non-profit. When you consider that this number has likely only increased over the last four years, it’s completely understandable why private equity is getting this space. There is a ton of financial opportunity by buying small hospice centers, creating a chain, and then profiting from economies of scale. 

Two decades ago, private equity firms accounted for just 30% of the hospice industry, but today, their growth is massive. In 2021, H.I.G Capital completed the acquisition of St. Croix Hospice for an undisclosed sum, likely representing a significant portion of the $3.5 billion in hospice transactions that year.

With Medicare funding accounting for nearly 90% of hospice care, it’s no wonder hospice care is so strong, as the money is a sure thing. Add this to the idea that private equity is taking note of the growing age of the baby boomer generation, which means that millions of patients will enter hospice care every year, effectively solidifying their revenue stream for years to come. 

On the positive side, the significant investment from private equity has helped grow hospice into more modern institutions. For example, telehealth is now improving, allowing families to reach out to doctors who are not yet able to visit in person. There is a growing trend of this kind of technology fueling the hospice facilities that families are choosing for their loved ones. 

The Growth of the Funeral Home Space

After someone leaves hospice care, the next step is typically the funeral home, and this is a business that continues to grow as well. In 2023, IBISWorld reported that funeral homes generated over $18 billion annually, and this number is expected to grow by almost 2.5% annually between now and 2028. This is driven, unsurprisingly, by the rising number of deaths among older generations. 

As a shift toward cremation occurs, which now accounts for approximately 57% of all deaths in funeral homes, it isn’t shrinking the market but instead diversifying it. Now, funeral homes are expanding their sales opportunities beyond just caskets into memorial events and urn sales.

Additionally, private equity firms, such as Foundation Partners Group, are acquiring family-owned funeral homes. In an industry where approximately 80% of the roughly 19,000 funeral homes are independent, this means that private equity is earning billions from the money being spent and generated in this sector.  

Any investment from a private equity fund is, unsurprisingly, likely to fund modernization, which private equity excels at. This means that as online booking systems become more integrated or green burial becomes more popular, private equity groups are targeting younger, more tech-savvy, and climate-savvy family members of baby boomers to expand the dollars they can generate. 

This is very much the same thing private equity is doing in the hospice space by buying small, stretching big by creating chains, streamlining all operations, and creating what they believe is more value for the “customer.” 

Key Service Segments

Beyond funeral homes and hospice, there are far more key service segments that are helping to drive the booming end-of-life business. Take websites like afterall.com, which helps drive millions of dollars in spending by people cataloging their end-of-life wishes online. 

Using a website like this, people can lay out all their end-of-life instructions, including what they want posted on their social media accounts and whether they prefer to be buried or cremated. The hope is that websites like these are driving business forward in an area where making decisions can be incredibly overwhelming. 

The same goes for things like grief counseling and support, which was a field valued at $4 billion in 2024, but is expected to double to $8 billion in 20232. The potential for even greater profit also goes to estate planning, which accounted for just under 29% of all end-of-life market revenue in 2023. Using websites like afterall.com and many others like it, this field is growing rapidly, fueling the boom in end-of-life revenue. Instead of using a traditional lawyer, websites with venture capital funding are popping up giving people a much easier, and less expensive opportunity to create their own end-of-life story. 

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