Ethos Technologies debuts on Nasdaq in major tech IPO

Ethos Technologies, a San Francisco-based insurtech—a term for technology applied to the insurance industry—debuted on the Nasdaq on Thursday. As one of the year’s first major initial public offerings (IPOs), the listing is being closely watched as a bellwether for the 2026 listing cycle. The company and selling shareholders raised approximately $200 million in the offering by selling 10.5 million shares.

However, the stock declined on its first day of trading:

• IPO price: $19 per share
• Closing price: $16.85 per share
• First-day decline: 11% below the IPO price

Unlike traditional carriers, Ethos is a licensed agency rather than an insurer, earning commissions on sales. The 10-year-old company runs a platform where consumers can buy life insurance policies online in 10 minutes, with over 10,000 independent agents using its software. Insurance carriers like Legal & General America and John Hancock also use the platform for underwriting and administrative services. This software-driven model helped Ethos reach profitability by mid-2023. Since then, the company has maintained a year-over-year revenue growth rate of more than 50%. In the nine months ending September 30, 2025, Ethos generated almost $278 million in revenue and just under $46.6 million in net income.

The company’s path to the public market stands in contrast to its early venture-backed competitors. During the era of cheap capital that ended in 2022, many similar startups struggled to survive. For example, Policygenius, which raised over $250 million from investors including KKR and Norwest Venture Partners, was acquired by Zinnia in 2023. That same year, competitor Health IQ, which had secured more than $200 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, filed for bankruptcy. Ethos, having raised over $400 million in venture capital from backers like Sequoia, Accel, GV, SoftBank, General Catalyst, and Heroic Ventures, avoided this fate by shifting its focus. “Not knowing what the ongoing funding climate would be, we got really serious about ensuring profitability,” co-founder Peter Colis told TechCrunch.

Going public was intended to bring more trust and credibility to its relationships with insurance carriers, according to Colis. However, the public market’s valuation of the company reflects a post-2022 correction. At the close of its first day of trading, Ethos had a market capitalization of about $1.1 billion. This is significantly below the $2.7 billion valuation it achieved during its last private funding round in July 2021, which was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

Why it matters

Ethos’s IPO serves as a critical bellwether for the 2026 listing cycle, demonstrating how a company can reach public-market scale through profitability while many of its early competitors failed or were acquired at subscale.