Ethos Technologies, a San Francisco-based provider of software for selling life insurance, listed on Nasdaq on Thursday. Insurtech platforms, one of the first major tech IPOs this year, are being closely watched as a harbinger of the 2026 listing cycle.
The company and selling shareholders raised approximately $200 million in the offering, selling 10.5 million shares under the symbol “LIFE” at $19 per share, one of the most high-profile picks in recent memory. The name is correct. Ethos operates a three-pronged platform that allows consumers to purchase insurance products online in 10 minutes without a medical examination. It says more than 10,000 independent agents use its software to sell insurance products, and insurers such as Legal & General America and John Hancock use it for underwriting and management services. Ethos itself is not an insurance company. We are a licensed agency that receives a commission on sales.
The company’s stock closed its first day as a public company at $16.85, 11% below its IPO price of $19, but Ethos co-founders Peter Colis and Lingke Wang still have a lot to celebrate as they grow their 10-year-old company to public market size.
“When we started (the business), there were about eight or nine life insurance technology startups that looked very similar to Ethos and had similar Series A funding,” Colis told TechCrunch. “Over time, most startups changed direction, were acquired subscale, remained subscale, or went out of business.”
For example, Policygenius, which raised more than $250 million from investors including KKR and Norwest Venture Partners, was acquired by PE-backed Zinnia in 2023. Meanwhile, Health IQ, a startup that had secured more than $200 million from high-profile VCs like Andreessen Horowitz, filed for bankruptcy that same year.
Ethos, which has raised more than $400 million in venture capital, could easily have succumbed to a similar fate. Instead, the company is focused on achieving profitability as the era of cheap capital and easy financing comes to an end in 2022. “We were serious about ensuring profitability because we didn’t know what the funding environment was going to be like,” Colis said.
These financial disciplines transformed it into a profitable company by mid-2023, according to IPO documents. Since then, Ethos has maintained annual sales growth of over 50%. In the nine months ending September 30, 2025, the company had revenue of nearly $278 million and net income of just under $46.6 million.
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Nonetheless, the company ended its first day as a public company with a market capitalization of about $1.1 billion. This is a much lower valuation than the $2.7 billion it received in its last private placement round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 in July 2021.
When asked why Ethos went public, Colis said a big part of the reason was to provide “additional trust and credibility” to potential partners and customers. He explained that many major insurance companies have a history of more than 100 years, so being publicly traded means the company’s viability.
Ethos’ largest external shareholders include well-known companies including Sequoia, Accel, Google’s venture arm GV, and SoftBank, as well as General Catalyst and Heroic Ventures. Sequoia and Accel did not sell shares in the IPO, the companies said.
