Founder Focus: Shella Sylla and Prismm Are Helping Families Protect What They’ve Worked For
There are some conversations most people put off.
Where are the important documents? Who has access to the accounts? What happens if something unexpected happens tomorrow?
For Shella Sylla, COO of Prismm, and the Prismm team, those questions are not abstract. They are the reason Prismm exists.
Prismm is a platform that helps banks get connected to beneficiaries early and helps account holders store critical information in one secure place so assets can be transferred to their heirs more quickly when they pass away. The goal is simple, but deeply important: make one of life’s hardest moments a little less difficult for families.
As Shella puts it, “Later doesn’t belong to us.”
Solving a Problem Families Often Discover Too Late
Today, when an account holder passes away, the process of transferring assets to a beneficiary can be slow, manual, and frustrating.
A family member may have to walk into a bank branch, provide a death certificate, wait for that certificate to be validated, and then navigate a process that can take weeks, months, or sometimes even years before funds are released. When they do walk into the bank, they aren’t known which makes the process challenging.
Those funds already belong to the beneficiary. But when they haven’t been authenticated and then add the fact that the information is not organized ahead of time, families can hit a wall at the exact moment they are grieving and emotionally overwhelmed.
Prismm is designed to streamline that process.
The platform helps account holders and beneficiaries provide information and consent on the front end. Then, when a death occurs, Prismm can help authenticate the beneficiary, verify the event, validate the death certificate, and transfer funds to the beneficiary more quickly, either into an existing account at the financial institution or into a newly originated account.
That means what once took months could happen in days.
For families, that can remove a major burden during an already painful season.
Protecting Assets Before They Disappear
Prismm also helps solve another problem many families do not realize exists: unclaimed assets.
When beneficiaries do not know an account exists, cannot prove they are the beneficiary, or cannot move through a bank’s manual process, those funds can sit untouched for years. Over time, fees may chip away at the balance. Eventually, through a process called escheatment, the funds may be turned over to the state.
If they are never claimed, families may never recover the money their loved one worked hard to build.
For Shella and the Prismm team, that matters.
Prismm is built to stop that leakage by helping families organize the information, documents, and access needed before it is too late.
At minimum, Shella says people should think about storing key documents like a will, life insurance policy, Social Security card, driver’s license, birth certificate, and other critical records. For business owners, that may also include operating agreements, partnership agreements, key person life insurance, and other important business documents.
And in today’s world, it also includes digital life.
Most people have dozens, if not hundreds, of passwords and digital accounts. Without a plan, even something as simple as closing or memorializing a social media account can become difficult after someone passes away.
Prismm gives families a central place to prepare for those moments before they become emergencies.
A Win for Families and Financial Institutions
While the family impact is clear, Prismm also creates value for financial institutions.
For banks and credit unions, the first point of contact with a beneficiary often happens after a loss. That is a difficult moment to begin a relationship. Prismm gives financial institutions a way to connect with beneficiaries earlier, provide meaningful value to account holders, and create a smoother experience when the time comes.
It also helps institutions keep deposits in-house and build relationships with the next generation. And because the institution covers the cost of the platform, account holders get the benefit of the Prismm vault at no separate charge. It is simply there as a convenience built into their banking relationship.
For Shella, it is a win-win-win: better for families, better for beneficiaries, and better for financial institutions ready to modernize an old, cumbersome process.
“The ones that get that and move quickly on it first are the ones that are going to win,” she said.
Momentum, Integration, and the Next Stage of Growth
Prismm has continued to build momentum on multiple fronts.
One of the most significant recent milestones: Prismm completed its integration with Jack Henry, one of the largest core banking platforms in the country. That integration means Prismm can now operate inside the existing environment of any Jack Henry financial institution, with minimal lift on the institution’s side. For banks and credit unions evaluating the platform, it turns an abstract conversation into a concrete one.
Earlier this year, the team attended one of the largest annual bank conferences in the country, getting directly in front of their target customers: CEOs, chief innovation officers, heads of deposits, CFOs, and retail banking leaders. They walked away with around 40 solid leads and have been actively working those opportunities through the pipeline since.
Enterprise sales takes time. There are approvals, conversations, and long decision cycles. But Prismm is building momentum in the right rooms, with the right people.
How Innovation Depot Helped Prismm Level Up
Prismm also used support through Innovation Depot to bring in outside technical assistance.
Through grant funding and The Network, Prismm worked with Lunar Labs to update and revamp the platform’s user interface. The product was already working, and clients were already using it, but the updated UI changed how Prismm showed up in the market.
“It was a game changer,” Shella said. “It made us look like a grown-up company.”
That kind of support helped Prismm present itself more confidently to financial institutions, clients, and the broader business community.
For Shella, it was also a reminder of what makes the Innovation Depot ecosystem valuable.
“Everyone really cares about the success of the founders,” she said.
The Founder Journey Requires Resilience
Like many founders, Shella is honest about the difficulty of entrepreneurship.
It is hard. It is challenging. And it requires a level of resilience most people do not see from the outside.
The founder path means hearing “no” often and still waking up the next day ready to keep going. It means continuing to build through uncertainty, rejection, and long timelines. It means believing in the problem enough to keep showing up.
But the reward is real, too.
For Shella, the most meaningful moments come when the work makes a difference for someone else. When someone sees the value of what Prismm is building. When a hard process becomes easier. When a family is helped at a time when they need it most.
That is what keeps the team moving.
Prismm is building technology for a moment no family wants to think about, but every family should prepare for.
And by helping people protect what they have worked for, Shella and the Prismm team are creating something that could change the way families, banks, and beneficiaries navigate one of life’s most difficult transitions.
