How Sequoia-backed Ethos reached the public market when rivals failed

Ethos Technologies, a San Francisco-based provider of software to sell life insurance, went public on Nasdaq on Thursday. As one of the first tech IPOs of the year, the insurtech platform is being watched with interest as a bellwether for the 2026 series.

The company and its investors raised about $ 200 million in the offering, selling 10.5 million shares at $ 19 each under the symbol “LIFE” – one of the most recent nosedive options. The name is appropriate. Ethos runs a three-pronged platform where consumers can buy points online in 10 minutes without a medical exam. It says more than 10,000 independents use its software to sell the policy and that carriers like Legal & General America and John Hancock rely on it for its recruiting and administrative services. Ethos itself is not an insurance company – it is a licensed organization that receives commissions on sales.

Although the company’s stock closed on its first day as a public company at $16.85, 11% below its IPO price of $19, Ethos co-founders Peter Colis and Lingke Wang still have a lot to celebrate, having expanded the 10-year-old business to the public market.

“When we started (the business), there were eight or nine startups that looked very similar to Ethos, with similar Series A funding,” Colis told TechCrunch. “Over time, many of the startups, bought out slowly, remain small or go out of business.”

For example, Policygenius, which has grown $250 million from investors, including KKR and Norwest Venture Partners, were taken by PE-backed Zinnia in 2023. Meanwhile, Health IQ, a startup that received more than $200 million from famous VCs like Andreessen Horowitz, filed for bankruptcy same year.

Ethos, which has raised more than $400 million in venture capital investments, could easily have fallen to the same fate. Instead, the company remained focused on profitability as the period of low costs and easy access to funds ended at the end of 2022. “Without knowing what the current costs would be, we were very determined to make a profit,” said Colis.

The financial law turned into a profitable company by mid-2023, according to his IPO documents. Since then, Ethos has maintained a year-over-year growth rate of over 50%. In the nine months ended September 30, 2025, the company generated revenue of approximately $278 million and net income of less than $46.6 million.

However, the company ended its first day as a public company with a net worth of $1.1 billion, a record low. $2.7 billion it raised its last private equity round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 in July 2021.

When asked why Ethos went public, Colis said the main reason was to bring “more trust and loyalty” to potential partners and customers. He explained that because many large insurers are more than a century old, going public shows that the company has remained strong.

Major foreign shareholders of Ethos include prominent 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 company’s IPO to be revealed.