Digital family legacy startup woos funders

Aeternum has found two financial backers, earning $85,000 and mentorship for Project Aegis, its initiative to securely store family memories online. DMZ and American Express selected the company for the Backing Canadian Small Businesses program, offering $10,000 in non-dilutive funds and 12 weeks of mentorship. National Research Council Canada made a $75,000 commitment shortly thereafter.

Aeternum allows families to upload and access photographs and other important files in a private setting away from social networks that profit from sharing user data. By contrast, Aeternum is a "vault" that both shields data from third parties and ensures it isn't wiped at the whim of a tech giant. "Everything that we've been using for the last couple of decades, primarily social media for content dissemination purposes, (no longer has) a very good reputation in terms of privacy protection and data ownership," founder Aaron Tong told Taproot in 2025. "I know many people that don't use traditional social media for sharing family-related — especially children-related — content. A lot of them don't even find it safe for their family, especially their younger children, to be engaged in social media."

Tong also said Aeternum benefits people on the other end of the age spectrum, noting older adults can get left behind when digitizing memories. "There is a massive blind spot in consumer tech right now: we expect our aging parents and grandparents to navigate complex digital interfaces just to preserve their own family history," he wrote. These new funds will allow the company to further develop its user interface and user experience to make its service more accessible.