Former Avalara exec leads new Seattle-area startup inspired by Washington’s estate tax

After a decade helping Avalara scale its tax software business, Alesia Pinney is taking aim at a different kind of tax headache.

Pinney is CEO and co-founder of Legata, a Seattle-area startup helping affluent households create estate plans.

She said the idea for Legata grew out of frustration with Washington’s estate tax and how little many families understand about the risk to their assets.

“There are so many people who don’t really realize that they’re going to lose family wealth if they don’t plan,” Pinney said.

Legata’s online platform walks households through creating wills, trusts and related documents so they preserve available exemptions and reduce potential estate tax exposure. The company aims to modernize what Pinney describes as an increasingly strained system: more affluent households, fewer estate planning attorneys, and complex state-by-state tax rules.

Washington is one of a handful of states with its own estate tax, separate from the federal estate tax, that applies to estates exceeding $3 million per person. The debate over estate taxes has been heating up after Washington lawmakers passed a bill last year that increased the top rate to as high as 35%, among the highest in the country.

Now, lawmakers are moving a proposal in this year’s legislative session to repeal that change amid fears of wealthy residents leaving Washington state. The tax increase also drew criticism from tech leaders.

Pinney said she supports rolling back the estate tax hike “because we are losing entrepreneurs and will continue to do so if we aren’t more thoughtful about taxation.”

The CEO published a recent blog post detailing how Washington’s estate tax can impact cases involving Washington property or business interests.

After launching last year with an initial focus on Washington state, Legata is now serving clients nationwide. “There’s kind of an estate planning crisis all over the country,” Pinney said.

Legata is aimed at households with roughly $1 million to $20 million in assets. Pinney said traditional estate-planning services tend to focus either on people with very modest estates that will never face estate tax, or on ultra-high-net-worth families with complex needs.

The cost is $1,495 to create an estate plan, plus $195 per year for an ongoing subscription. The subscription includes document storage, updates when laws change, and reminders about tasks such as retitling assets.

Pinney said Legata can also be used by attorneys who are overwhelmed by demand. Many estate-planning lawyers, she said, already turn away clients because they lack capacity.

The company uses artificial intelligence internally to help draft and curate content, but Pinney said all materials that reach customers are reviewed by lawyers.

Pinney spent more than 12 years at Avalara and was its chief legal officer and an executive vice president, helping lead the company through its IPO and subsequent $8.4 billion private equity deal in 2022. She started her career as a CPA at Deloitte before becoming a corporate attorney at Perkins Coie.

Legata’s leadership team also includes other former Avalara employees: Legata co-founder Henry Frantz was a legal operations manager at Avalara, while CMO Bryan Wiggins was vice president of marketing.

Legata has raised $725,000 in funding and employs less than 10 people. Pinney said the startup is under review by regulators in Washington state to provide legal services.