Insurtech Leader Ethos Promotes Vipul Sharma to CTO; Co-Founder Lingke Wang to President

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Sep 13, 2021, 09:00 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ethos, the insurtech leader that's transforming the life insurance space, has promoted Vipul Sharma to Chief Technology Officer. Co-founder Lingke Wang will become President, focusing on company scale and growth.

Sharma joined Ethos as VP of Engineering in 2019 and has led the company's efforts to transform a 15-week process of paper applications and medical exams into just the click of a button by quantifying the user's health risk using predictive models. Sharma previously held engineering leadership positions at Indeed and Eventbrite.

Co-founder Lingke Wang said, "Life insurance is a complicated product and business, and technology is Ethos's secret sauce and key differentiator. Since joining us early in 2019, Vipul has led the development of our end-to-end technology stack and our breakthrough algorithmic underwriting technology, which is what enables us to change the way life insurance is provided and is also what enabled us to meet the increased demand we've seen during the pandemic. We're thrilled to welcome him to the Executive Team."

Clearly signaling its focus on growth and scale, Ethos has significantly strengthened its executive bench recently, adding Jenn Liu from Google as CPO, Anan Kashyap from Poshmark as CFO, and Troy Thompson from Legal & General America as Chief Actuary, and promoting David Zhang to Chief Strategy Officer. The hires and promotions follow a $100 million round from Softbank Vision Fund 2 that brought Ethos's valuation to $2.7 billion and total funds raised to over $400 million. SoftBank joined an all-star cast of investors including Sequoia Capital; Accel; GV (formerly Google Ventures); General Catalyst; Jay-Z's Roc Nation; and the investment vehicles of stars Will Smith and Robert Downey Jr.

Wang's experience of being sold an inappropriate whole life policy at a young age inspired Ethos's founding. "With Vipul leading our technology and engineering, I'm looking forward to focusing closely on helping Ethos scale to protect the next million families," he said.

Ethos has been growing at a significant rate and increasing its year-over-year momentum. Revenue and users have each grown by more than 600 percent year-over-year, and the company expects to issue $20 billion of life insurance coverage in 2021, surpassing all insurtech competitors. In addition to its revenue and user growth, the company has surpassed $100M in annualized gross profit. The company has offices in Austin, San Francisco, and Singapore, and plans to double its employee count by 2021 year end.

About Ethos
Ethos is a new kind of life insurance provider that makes getting coverage easy and accessible for millions of families. Ethos uses deep technology and data science to eliminate traditional barriers to life insurance and bring the industry into the modern age. The company built its technology from the ground up with a focus on creating a seamless customer experience; a mobile-first, online application process that takes minutes instead of weeks; and offering coverage without a medical exam for over 99% of applicants and a few health questions. The result is a life insurance company that puts people first. The company has offices in San Francisco, Austin, and Singapore. To learn more, visit www.ethoslife.com.

SOURCE Ethos