Roughly half of Americans choose cremation at the end, but it’s a market segment with a rather austere asthetic that Foreverence founder Pete Saari believes is stuck in the past. “[The industry] still have this antiquated mindset that people who choose cremation have done so for financial reasons,” he says. “And that’s just not the case anymore.”

Saari’s tech company, which began 3D-printing urns from its Eden Prairie office in 2014, has quintupled its output, which he won’t specify. For the average going price of about $2,500—just above the typical cost for a low-end casket—Foreverence can turn around a “fully customized” urn in a week or so. A hefty 30 to 40 percent of its customers aren’t even anticipating an immediate need, Saari says, but are proactively tackling end-of-life affairs at an early age.

In the late spring, Foreverence hopes to close on a round of funding. If it happens, Saari says the company will be committed to two expansion fronts. “We just launched Foreverence Pets,” Saari says. He’s confident it will succeed, considering the number of dog urn inquires the company receives.

Saari also plans to establish a Foreverence operation in Japan (an anticipated investor is Japanese), a country with a 99.9 percent cremation rate. “There’s a cultural movement in Japan going on right now called shukatsu, meaning ‘legacy planning,’ ” he says. This August, at an end-of-life trade show in Tokyo, Foreverence will undertake some international expansion.