How Sequoia-backed Ethos reached the public market while rivals fell short

Ethos Technologies, a San Francisco-based supplier of bundle for selling beingness insurance, debuted connected the Nasdaq connected Thursday. As 1 of the year’s archetypal large tech IPOs, the insurtech level is being intimately watched arsenic a bellwether for the 2026 listing cycle.

The institution and its selling shareholders raised astir $200 cardinal successful the offering, selling 10.5 cardinal shares astatine $19 each nether the ticker awesome “LIFE” — 1 of the much on-the-nose choices successful caller memory. The sanction fits. Ethos runs a three-sided level wherever consumers bargain policies online successful 10 minutes without aesculapian exams. It says implicit 10,000 autarkic agents usage its bundle to merchantability those policies and that carriers similar Legal & General America and John Hancock trust connected it for underwriting and administrative services. Ethos itself isn’t an insurer — it’s a licensed bureau earning commissions connected sales.

Though the company’s banal closed its archetypal time arsenic a nationalist institution astatine $16.85, 11% beneath its IPO terms of $19, Ethos co-founders Peter Colis and Lingke Wang inactive person plentifulness to celebrate, having grown the 10-year-old concern to public-market scale.

“When we launched [the business], determination were similar 8 oregon 9 different beingness insurtech startups that looked precise akin to Ethos, with akin Series A funding,” Colis told TechCrunch. “Over time, the immense bulk of those startups person pivoted, been acquired astatine sub-scale, stay astatine sub-scale oregon gone retired of business.”

For instance, Policygenius, which raised implicit $250 million from investors, including KKR and Norwest Venture Partners, was acquired by PE-backed Zinnia successful 2023. Meanwhile, Health IQ, a startup that secured much than $200 cardinal from salient VCs similar Andreessen Horowitz, filed for bankruptcy that aforesaid year.

Ethos, which has raised implicit $400 cardinal successful task capital, could person easy succumbed to a akin fate. Instead, the institution remained laser-focused connected reaching profitability arsenic the epoch of inexpensive superior and casual fundraising came to an extremity successful 2022. “Not knowing what the ongoing backing clime would be, we got truly superior astir ensuring profitability,” Colis said.

That fiscal subject transformed it into a profitable institution by mid-2023, according to its IPO documents. Since then, Ethos has besides maintained a year-over-year gross maturation complaint of much than 50%. In the 9 months ending September 30, 2025, the institution generated astir $278 cardinal successful gross and conscionable nether $46.6 cardinal successful nett income.

Still, the institution ended its archetypal time arsenic a nationalist institution with a marketplace capitalization of astir $1.1 billion, a valuation that’s importantly beneath the $2.7 billion it garnered successful its past backstage circular led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 successful July 2021.

When asked wherefore Ethos went public, Colis said that a large portion of the crushed was to bring “additional spot and credibility” to imaginable partners and clients. He explained that due to the fact that galore large security carriers are implicit a period old, being publically traded signals the company’s staying power.

The largest extracurricular shareholders of Ethos see salient firms including Sequoia, Accel, Google’s task limb GV, and SoftBank, arsenic good arsenic General Catalyst and Heroic Ventures. Sequoia and Accel did not merchantability shares successful the IPO, the institution disclosed.