Ethos Applied sciences, a San Francisco-based supplier of life insurance coverage gross sales software program, went public on the Nasdaq on Thursday. As one of many first massive tech IPOs of the 12 months, the insurtech platform is being watched as a bellwether for the 2026 itemizing cycle.
The corporate and its promoting shareholders raised roughly $200 million in a public providing, promoting 10.5 million shares at $19 every beneath the ticker image “LIFE.” It was one of many extra nifty choices in current reminiscence. The title is ideal. Ethos operates a three-sided platform that permits customers to buy insurance coverage on-line in 10 minutes with no medical examination. The corporate says greater than 10,000 unbiased brokers use its software program to promote insurance coverage insurance policies, and airways corresponding to Authorized & Normal America and John Hancock use its software program for underwriting and administrative companies. Ethos itself shouldn’t be an insurance coverage firm. We’re licensed brokers who earn a fee from gross sales.
Though the corporate’s inventory closed on its first day of buying and selling at $16.85, 11% beneath its public providing value of $19, Ethos co-founders Peter Collis and Linke Wang nonetheless have a lot to have fun after rising their 10-year-old enterprise to public market dimension.
“Once we launched, [the business]”There have been about eight or 9 different life insurance coverage tech startups that had been similar to Ethos and had related Sequence A funding. Over time, most of these startups pivoted, received acquired at subscale, stayed at subscale, or went out of enterprise,” Collis informed TechCrunch.
For instance, Policygenius has raised greater than $250 million from traders together with KKR and Norwest Enterprise Companions. Acquired by PE-backed Zinnia In the meantime, Well being IQ, a startup that has secured greater than $200 million from outstanding enterprise capitalists like Andreessen Horowitz, filed for bankruptcy In that very same 12 months.
Ethos, which has raised greater than $400 million in enterprise capital, may simply have suffered an analogous destiny. As a substitute, the corporate remained centered on attaining profitability because the period of low-cost capital and straightforward financing involves an finish in 2022. “We labored actually onerous to make sure profitability as a result of we did not know what the present funding setting was going to be,” Collis stated.
The corporate says this monetary self-discipline turned it right into a worthwhile firm by mid-2023. IPO related documents. Since then, Ethos has additionally maintained a year-over-year income progress price of over 50%. For the 9 months ended September 30, 2025, the corporate generated income of roughly $278 million and internet revenue of slightly below $46.6 million.
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Nonetheless, the corporate ended its first day as a public firm with a market capitalization of about $1.1 billion, considerably decrease than the $2.7 billion it raised in its final non-public spherical led by SoftBank Imaginative and prescient Fund 2 in July 2021.
When requested why Ethos went public, Collis stated an enormous a part of the explanation was to carry “extra belief and confidence” to potential companions and clients. He defined that many main insurance coverage corporations are over 100 years outdated, so being listed is an indication of the corporate’s endurance.
Ethos’ largest outdoors shareholders embrace outstanding corporations corresponding to Sequoia, Accel, Google’s enterprise arm GV, and SoftBank, in addition to Normal Catalyst and Heroic Ventures. Sequoia and Accel didn’t promote any shares within the IPO, the corporate stated disclosed.
