What Vertin does

Vertin is a privately held, family-owned funeral services company headquartered in Edina, Minnesota, that operates a multi-brand network of more than 70 funeral home and cemetery brands across eight U.S. states — Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Pennsylvania. Founded in 1904 as Joseph Vertin & Sons Funeral Home in Breckenridge, Minnesota, the company is owned by third-generation funeral director Tom Vertin and led by CEO Jason Burlage, and today describes itself as one of the largest privately held, family-owned funeral home operators in the Midwest.

The company generates revenue through three principal streams: (1) at-need funeral, cremation, cemetery, monument, and aftercare services delivered through its owned physical locations; (2) preneed advance funeral planning, sold by a team of nearly twenty Advance Funeral Planners managed by a Sales Manager and distributed in part through a partnership with Precoa; and (3) internal shared services support — operations, accounting, technology, marketing, KPI dashboards, and NPS tracking (averaging 95) — delivered to acquired locations under what Vertin calls the "Vertin Business System" (VBS). The platform supports both operational integration of acquired brands and centralized performance management across the network.

Vertin's go-to-market combines a consumer-facing funeral services brand portfolio with a B2B acquisition motion: a dedicated "Partner With Us" confidential review process targets family-owned funeral home owners seeking succession solutions, with the stated philosophy of "buying to operate, not to flip." Between September 2023 and December 2024 the company completed at least six acquisitions (Buhrig, Hoffman, Olson, Roy-Hetland, Taylor-Stine, Warner), plus additional announced transactions, extending both its Minnesota/Midwestern density and its geographic reach into Pennsylvania. Pricing is quote-based and not publicly disclosed; service offerings are customized per family.

Name

Vertin

Legal name

Vertin Company, LLC

Website

https://vertin.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1904

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

501–1,000 employees

Short description

Vertin is a privately held, family-owned funeral services company operating 70+ funeral home and cemetery brands across 8 Midwestern US states, offering funeral, cremation, cemetery, preneed, and aftercare services through a shared-services consolidation model targeting family-owned sellers.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Breckenridge

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Funeral and Cremation Services: Vertin generates revenue through providing funeral services, cremation services, and cemetery services to families. Services include traditional funeral arrangements, cremation options, and related aftercare services.
2. Preneed Sales: Advance funeral planning sales where families pre-purchase funeral services. Vertin employs nearly twenty Advance Funeral Planners managed by a Sales Manager to generate long-term revenue commitments.
3. Shared Services Support: Internal shared services providing operations, accounting, technology, marketing, and facility support to acquired funeral home locations, enabling local teams to focus on customer care.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Vertin is a family-owned funeral services company operating more than 80 funeral home locations across the Midwest. Its core offerings include traditional funeral services, cremation services, cemetery services in select markets, and preneed planning via the Total Care Plan. Vertin also operates Vertin Business Solutions, a consulting arm that assists independent funeral home owners with succession planning and sale to Vertin.

Product overview

Vertin is a family-owned funeral service company operating funeral homes, cremation services, and cemeteries across eight states in the Midwest. The company offers a network of funeral home brands (including Anderson, Baker, Dugan, Kok, Olson, Warner, and others) that provide traditional funeral services, cremation, cemetery operations, and reception venues. The Vertin Business System (VBS) provides centralized shared services including operations support, accounting, technology, marketing, KPI dashboards, and NPS tracking to enable local teams to focus on family care. Additional offerings include advance funeral planning (preneed), aftercare services, and monument products. The company maintains an average Net Promoter Score of 95.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Vertin Business System: The company's operational framework providing shared services in operations, accounting, technology, marketing, and more to support local funeral home locations.

Products and services

• Funeral Services

Quantifiable outcome

• Average NPS of 95 based on customer satisfaction surveys

Named customers2 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• PrecoacoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPrecoa is Vertin's preneed affiliate that recognizes outstanding sales performance. Precoa awarded Pam Tsatsos as Sales Manager of the Year, demonstrating their strategic relationship in the preneed sales domain.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• NorthStar Memorial Group: NorthStar Memorial Group is a private, PE-backed consolidator of funeral homes and cemeteries across the U.S. Like Vertin, it pursues tuck-in acquisitions of independent family-owned operators and operates them under retained local brands with centralized back-office support.
• Foundation Partners Group: Foundation Partners Group is a privately held, PE-backed funeral home and cemetery consolidator that has built a multi-state network of branded locations through acquisition. Highly comparable to Vertin in business model — acquiring family-owned operators, retaining local brands, and centralizing shared services — making it the closest direct peer.

Others

• Precoa: Precoa is a preneed marketing and sales organization that partners with independent funeral homes including Vertin to drive advance funeral planning revenue. Not a competitor, but a strategic channel partner closely tied to Vertin's preneed growth motion.
• Batesville: Batesville is a leading casket and burial product manufacturer and the dominant supplier to North American funeral homes. It is a key supplier to Vertin and source of senior talent, rather than a competitor, but is structurally tied to the funeral industry's economics.
• Wilbert Funeral Services: Wilbert is a major manufacturer and licensee network for burial vaults and cremation products serving thousands of funeral homes. Adjacent infrastructure provider in the death-care supply chain, not a direct competitor but ecosystem participant.

Broad incumbents

• StoneMor Partners: StoneMor Partners is a publicly traded cemetery and funeral home operator with a meaningful cemetery-led portfolio. Less direct overlap with Vertin's funeral-heavy mix, but competes in the broader death-care consolidation space.
• Service Corporation International: Service Corporation International (SCI) is the largest publicly traded funeral, cremation, and cemetery operator in North America, operating thousands of locations under brands including Dignity Memorial. It competes with Vertin for acquisition targets but at materially greater scale and capital base.
• Dignity Memorial: Dignity Memorial is SCI's flagship national brand for funeral, cremation, and memorial services. As the largest branded death-care platform, it sets the competitive benchmark against which Vertin and other independent consolidators position their retained-brand portfolios.
• Carriage Services: Carriage Services is a publicly traded funeral home and cemetery operator with a decentralized operating model that empowers local managers — conceptually similar to Vertin's brand-retention approach. It competes in the same acquisition market and uses a similar shared-services overlay.
• Park Lawn Corporation: Park Lawn Corporation is a publicly traded Canadian-based funeral, cremation, and cemetery operator with a growing U.S. footprint built through acquisition. Comparable acquisition-driven roll-up strategy to Vertin, though publicly listed and larger.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Subsidiaries61 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Vertin