Cress Funeral and Cremation Services

What Cress Funeral and Cremation Services does

Cress Funeral and Cremation Services is a privately held, family-owned funeral services company headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, serving families across Dane County and surrounding communities. The company operates eight physical funeral home locations — Madison-West, Madison-East, Madison-Far West (Cress Center), Sun Prairie, Stoughton, McFarland, Deerfield, and Waunakee — and provides burial, cremation, veteran, pre-planning, and personalized memorial services. It owns and operates licensed crematories at the Madison-Far West and Sun Prairie locations and is the only provider in Dane County offering family participation viewing rooms during cremation. The company traces its operating history to 1868 and has been under continuous Cress family ownership since 1977, when founder W. Robert (Bob) Cress acquired the Frautchi Funeral Home; current leadership includes Director of Operations Scott Kundinger (since 1999) and family consultant Carey Cress Fose.

The service portfolio spans traditional burial services, direct and witnessed cremation, green burials, veteran benefits assistance, tailored farewells (personalization with tribute videos, photo displays, and live streaming), and a Digital Memorialization offering built on the Cumulus platform with VR-enabled memory preservation. Supporting offerings include organ-donation assistance, a recycling and sustainability program, obituary publishing with email notification subscriptions, a Send Flowers integration with local florists, and a strategic partnership with HeartLight Center for ongoing grief support groups, workshops, and counseling. The website is built on the Tukios platform and integrates Google Analytics; the company is a member of the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association of North America and adheres to the Cremation Code of Ethics.

Cress makes money through a mix of one-time at-need revenue (professional service fees, facility use, merchandise such as caskets and urns, and disposition costs) and recurring pre-planned/pre-funded contracts with cost-guarantee protection. Pricing follows a published General Price List with itemized unit pricing; specific prices are not disclosed publicly and customers are directed to contact locations directly. The go-to-market is sales-led and relationship-driven, built on community presence, church and cemetery partnerships, referral networks, and a digital marketing layer (website, blog, obituary notifications, testimonials). Customer segments are primarily families experiencing loss, individuals planning ahead, military veterans, and broader community members engaged through events and grief-support programming.

Name

Cress Funeral and Cremation Services

Legal name

Cress Funeral and Cremation Services

Website

https://cressfuneralservice.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1868

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Cress Funeral and Cremation Services is a family-owned funeral services company operating eight funeral home locations across Dane County, Wisconsin, providing burial, cremation, veteran, pre-planning, and digital memorialization services to local families.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Funeral Services

NAICS

Funeral Homes and Funeral Services (812210), Cemeteries and Crematories (812220)

akta.pro primary industry

Bereavement & Grief Support Services (Family Aftercare) (HSABAFAI)

Keywords

• Funeral services
• Cremation services
• Burial services
• Pre-planning services
• Grief support

Headquarters

HQ city

Madison

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices8 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure, Supply Chain, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Funeral and Cremation Services: Core revenue from funeral services including traditional burial services, cremation services (traditional funeral with cremation, direct cremation, memorial services), and graveside services. Fees include professional services, facility use, merchandise, and disposition costs.
2. Merchandise: Sale of burial caskets, cremation urns, cemetery markers, memorial items, and personalization merchandise.
3. Pre-planning Services: Advance funeral planning services allowing families to pre-arrange and pre-fund funeral services, offering peace of mind and cost-guarantee options.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Cress Funeral and Cremation Services provides traditional burial, cremation (including green burial), veteran, and personalized memorial services through eight funeral home locations in Wisconsin. Its offerings also include advance pre-planning, grief support through the HeartLight Center partnership, digital memorialization via the Cumulus platform, obituary publishing, and flower ordering. The company operates its own licensed crematories at multiple sites and serves families across Dane County and surrounding Wisconsin communities.

Product overview

Cress Funeral and Cremation Services is a funeral home providing end-of-life services across 8 locations in Wisconsin. The core product portfolio consists of Burial Services, Cremation Services (including Green Burials), Veteran Services, and Tailored Farewells personalization options. Supporting services include Preplanning for advance arrangements, Grief Support through HeartLight Center partnership, Digital Memorialization via Cumulus platform, and organ donation assistance. Additional offerings encompass Send Flowers ordering and Obituary Services. The company also operates a Licensed Crematory Authority with on-site crematories at multiple locations.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• HeartLight Center Grief Services: Partnership with HeartLight Center to provide grief support groups, educational resources, and special programs focused on healing after loss.
• Cumulus

Products and services

• Burial Services Traditional burial services including visitations, funeral services, and graveside ceremonies with customizable options for families to memorialize their loved ones.
• Cremation Services Comprehensive cremation services including traditional funeral with cremation, direct cremation, memorial services, and graveside services. Includes family viewing rooms and witnessing opportunities unique to Dane County.
• Green Burials Environmentally friendly burial options using biodegradable caskets and urns, no embalming chemicals, natural fiber clothing, and sustainable cemetery practices.
• Veteran Services Specialized funeral and memorial services for veterans including assistance with VA benefits, military funeral honors, burial flags, headstones, and Presidential Memorial Certificates.
• Tailored Farewells (Personalization) Personalized funeral services incorporating photos, tribute videos, music, poetry readings, and custom displays to honor the unique life of loved ones.
• Digital Memorialization (Cumulus) Digital platform for preserving memories, creating interactive tribute pages, and enabling family collaboration on memorial content with VR-enabled experiences and location mapping.
• Preplanning Services Advance funeral planning services allowing individuals to make arrangements in advance, document wishes, and potentially pre-fund funerals with flexible payment options and cost guarantee protection.
• Grief Support (HeartLight Center) Grief support services through partnership with HeartLight Center including support groups, educational resources, workshops, and special programming for healing after loss.
• Recycling & Sustainability Program Environmental sustainability initiatives including eyeglass and hearing aid collection, pacemaker recycling for third-world countries, prosthetic recycling, and energy conservation practices.
• Organ Donation Assistance Guidance and support for organ and tissue donation, including information on donor registries, donation process, and facility availability for procurement organizations.
• Obituary Services Obituary writing, publishing, and notification services including searchable obituary database and email subscription alerts for new obituaries.
• Send Flowers Flower ordering service through trusted local florists for sympathy arrangements delivered to funeral homes or family residences.

Quantifiable outcome

• Only cremation provider in Dane County with family participation facilities
• +1 more outcomes

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

Feature2 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• HeartLight CentercoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCress has partnered with HeartLight Center to provide grief support groups, educational resources, and special programs focused on healing after loss. HeartLight is a not-for-profit offering virtual and in-person grief support groups, workshops, seminars, and resources for individuals and organizations. Cress hosts support circles at multiple locations including Sun Prairie and East Washington, and promotes HeartLight programs to grieving families.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• StoneMor Partners: Pennsylvania-based provider of funeral and cemetery products and services with hundreds of locations. Overlaps with Cress on burial, cremation, and merchandise offerings across a multi-site portfolio.
• Park Lawn Corporation: Canadian-based publicly traded funeral, cemetery, and cremation operator with locations across North America. Similar multi-site local-brand strategy and growth-through-acquisition model relevant to Cress's footprint.
• Foundation Partners Group: Orlando-based PE-backed funeral home and cemetery operator with dozens of locations across the US. Closely comparable operating model to Cress — multi-site independent funeral home consolidator serving regional markets with similar service offerings.
• NorthStar Memorial Group: PE-backed operator of funeral homes, cemeteries, and cremation businesses across multiple US states. Similar acquisition-driven multi-site model focused on preserving local brand identity while centralizing back-office functions.
• Carriage Services: Houston-based publicly traded provider of funeral and cemetery services with a portfolio of branded local operations. Comparable in providing locally-branded funeral and cremation services across multiple sites, with growth via acquisition.

Others

• HeartLight Center: Wisconsin-based non-profit grief support organization partnered with Cress to deliver bereavement programming. Adjacent ecosystem participant — already a strategic ally of the subject company and representative of the grief-support category Cress participates in.
• Homesteaders Life Company: Iowa-based provider of pre-need funeral funding products and services sold through independent funeral homes. Directly comparable to the pre-planning/funding service line that Cress offers, and a potential partner or competitive adjacency in the pre-need channel.

Emerging players

• Tulip Cremation: Tech-enabled direct cremation provider operating in multiple US states with online arrangement and transparent pricing. Represents the disruption vector relevant to Cress — competes for the same local families on the cremation side with a different cost and experience model.

Broad incumbents

• Service Corporation International: Houston-based, the largest funeral services and cemeteries operator in North America (owns brands such as Dignity Memorial). Most relevant comparable for multi-location funeral home operators; substantially larger scale and publicly traded, but same core service lines as Cress.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/CressFuneralService
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/cress-funeral-and-cremation-service

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles18 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 Cress Funeral and Cremation Services