Tomb-sweeping Day is an annual traditional festival in China, when people go to the cemetery to pay tribute to their deceased relatives.

Online worship is not a new thing, but in recent years, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, it has become more and more popular, and some non-standard worship platforms have also emerged.

　　Affected by culture, the sacrificial and funeral industries have always been relatively unpopular, but the contact between capital and the funeral industry has already begun. In 2013, the first mainland funeral stock sprinted for the Hong Kong stock IPO. According to Crunchbase statistics, in the three years from 2017 to 2019, there were more than 26 financings for new funeral service companies.

　　According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the population of 60 years and above is 267.36 million, accounting for 18.9% of the national population. The funeral industry may be a good track in the future.

online ritual chaos

　　Tomb-sweeping Festival is coming, tomb-sweeping ancestors and outings are the two major ritual themes of Qingming Festival.

However, affected by the epidemic, the 2022 Tomb Sweeping Festival Sacrifice and Sweeping Work Conference held by the Ministry of Civil Affairs requires local governments to formulate sweeping policies that are compatible with the local epidemic prevention and control. It has also repeatedly emphasized that all localities should make full use of the Tomb-sweeping Day. Focus on the opportunity of sacrifice sweeping, implement the concept of green ecological development, and vigorously promote civilized and low-carbon sacrifice sweeping methods such as online sacrifice sweeping, flower sacrifice sweeping, and family memorial service.

　　Online sacrificial sweeping is not a new thing, but with the impact of the new crown epidemic, it has become more and more popular. In the past, people mainly sacrificed online sacrifices to some martyrs or celebrities. In recent years, people have begun to sacrifice their deceased relatives online.

However, due to the lack of necessary regulations and supervision, some chaos of online sacrifices has arisen spontaneously.

　　The Securities Times reporter noticed that recently, there have been many "cloud sacrificial scanning" services on the Internet and major mobile application platforms. The reporter used "sacrificial sacrificial" as the key word to download the first sacrificial APP in the APP mall, and then fill in the form. The memorial hall is built for free, and there is no review when filling in. Photos can be uploaded at will, and the tributes to worship all require users to recharge. Some products are priced as high as 600 yuan, and some APPs have also launched a ranking function... However, such APPs are basically shut down and run away after making money, and they will not be operated and maintained for a long time.

　　Offline sacrificial packages are also abundant.

Recently, there have been many Qingming Festival sacrificial and sweeping packages on Xianyu. The price is about 200-1000 yuan, including different packages. You can find someone to clean the tombstone, lay flowers, offer incense, and observe silence. Some are more "conscience". ” sellers will videotape the whole process with customers during the sacrifice, but there are also many people who just send customers a video or photo taken a long time ago to perfunctory.

　　A person in the funeral industry told reporters: "At present, online worship websites still need to be supervised, some rules need to be refined, and many offline sacrifices are unreliable. Most of them ask some people in the same city to send flowers to the cemetery. , it's better for you to call an errand service yourself."

　　On April 2, the Cyberspace Administration of China stated that in order to advocate civilized fashion, standardize the order of online sacrifice and sweeps, and prevent the spread of feudal and superstitious information through online sacrifices, arbitrary "pillars" to infringe on the rights and interests of others, and malicious accumulation of money to harm the interests of the masses, etc. The relevant departments of the Cyberspace Administration of China recently issued a notice to deploy and carry out the standardized management of network sacrifices during the Qingming Festival.

Funeral Industry Investment and Financing

　　As early as 2013, some mainland funeral companies sprinted for Hong Kong stock IPOs.

At that time, Fushouyuan planned to go public in Hong Kong. The IPO financing scale was about 200 million US dollars. Its IPO attracted the interest of the global private equity firm Carlyle Investment Group. At that time, a Carlyle spokesman revealed that the group had already started negotiations with Fushouyuan. .

　　In the same year, a project called "Zhongjin Saifu Chaoyang Industrial Fund" is being promoted through different channels. It is understood that the main business model of this investment is that after reaching a cooperation agreement with the temple, Zhejiang Daci Culture Company will contribute capital. Participating in the expansion project of the temple, the core is to participate in the construction of a specific hall for storing the columbarium of the deceased, etc., and adopting such a "tower burial" or "palace burial" method often involves a part of "pledged donations", which is the main investment for Daci Culture Company. The source of return, this fund will also indirectly obtain the investment return of the temple from it.

　　According to Crunchbase statistics, in the three years from 2017 to 2019, there were more than 26 financings for new funeral service companies, but many of them were in the early stage, and a few received financing from investment incubators such as Y Combinator and 500 Startups.

　　Although the funeral industry still exists and operates in the form of small workshops with small teams, there are also many entrants when it comes to "technology + funeral services".

For example, Bio-Response Solutions is a technology company that offers "liquid cremation," or "new water burial."

In specialized equipment, a high-temperature strong alkaline solution decomposes the remains into basic elements such as protein, salt, amino acid, and water.

　　Through Better Place Forest's website, you can choose a tree of your choice in a California forest, mix the ashes and soil, and bury it under the tree, reports the Silicon Rabbit Race.

According to personal preference, you can choose to be a fertilizer for small trees to help it thrive, or you can contribute meager nutrients to rare old trees.

What's more interesting is that if you really think it's too common to sleep underground, you can fly around the earth, land on the moon, or even fly to the depths of the universe in Celestis' spacecraft and never look back.

　　Loop, a Dutch company, is teaming up with two funeral companies to launch the world's first "living" coffin made of mycelium, which can remove toxic substances from the body and fertilize the soil.

Netizens who watched it couldn't help but sigh: how much money can you buy it!

　　However, my country has entered an aging society since 2000, and the aging process in our country is accelerating.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the population aged 60 and above is 267.36 million, accounting for 18.9% of the national population, of which 200.56 million are aged 65 and above, accounting for 14.2% of the national population.

With the aging problem, the number of deaths is increasing year by year, and the death rate is also showing an upward trend. The funeral industry may be a good track.