HCR Law acts for YFM Equity Partners on Aura Life investment

Robert Rice, Partner in HCR Law’s Thames Valley Corporate team, led our team advising YFM Equity Partners on its recent investment into Aura Life, a Surrey-based digital provider of funeral plans.

Serial entrepreneur Paul Jameson founded Aura Life with his son, Dave, and close family friend Ben May following his diagnosis with motor neurone disease in 2017 and his experience of end-of-life planning. The aim at Aura is to ease this difficult time for consumers by offering a compassionate, transparent range of digitally based options for direct cremation and funeral services.

YFM is a specialist, independently owned private equity investor with more than 40 years’ experience helping companies unlock value and grow across sectors including retail, technology, manufacturing and healthcare.

The purpose of YFM’s investment is to support Aura’s next phase of growth. This includes further investment in marketing and distribution, the development of additional end-of-life services and the continued strengthening of the senior team and operational infrastructure. Aura has recently hired several key individuals, including Paul Reed (ex-Memoria) as Chief Commercial Officer, Imogen Benson as Head of Product and Pablo Uson as Chief Financial Officer. Gill Stewart has also joined the board as a non-executive director, bringing significant sector experience from her tenure leading the Funeralcare division at the Co-op.

Robert Rice said: “It was great to work with Adam Hart and Alex Neale on this transaction. YFM has been extremely busy and it’s good to see that we have the resource and expertise to support them on multiple deals when they need us. Although the circumstances around Aura’s formation are sad to learn, the journey Paul, Dave and Ben have been on since has been incredible.

“In 2022, the FCA introduced regulation for the funeral plan industry, so an additional workstream we needed to cover for YFM on this deal was an examination of these aspects of the business. We were impressed by the quality of Aura’s legal frameworks and compliance and it was a real pleasure working with them and their advisers throughout. We wish all parties every continued success.”

Adam Hart, Partner at YFM Equity Partners, said: “We’re really excited about this investment and would like to thank everyone involved for helping to progress it so smoothly and efficiently. Alex and I really enjoyed working with Rob and his colleagues at HCR Law.

“It’s important to us to ensure that we and our advisers move quickly, with minimal distraction to our investee management teams. Rob and his team took care of the detail while ensuring we had a clear line of sight on the key issues that required our focus throughout, which was great for us.”