Lemonade, the online insurance provider which broke the traditional way homeowners and renters insurance are sold to the public, announced that the Unicorn company will go to market with a $29 share value and a $1.6 billion total evaluation. The shares were originally priced between $23-$26 but following high  demand were expected to be in the $26-$28 range, until finally settling at the $29 per share mark. Lemonade will trade under the ticker LMND.

The SoftBank Group-backed company fell short of its initial $2 billion private evaluation which was based on Lemonade’s previous $300 million Series D funding round.  At the time, the company did note intentions to raise an additional $100 million, however, that sum would be easily surpassed during the initial public offering. In the end, the company was able to land $319 million on its NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) IPO, which was mainly due to the rise in share price. Furthermore, the company sold 11 million shares, while allocating 1.7 million shares to the IPO underwriters, that include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Allen & Co., Barclays, JMP Securities, Oppenheimer & Co., William Blair, and LionTree, which could increase the total raised funds to $367 million.

Shai Winninger (left) & Daniel Schreiber source: Lemonade

Founded in 2015 by CEO Daniel Schreiber and COO Shai Wininger,  the New York-based company set out to offer simple easy insurance, canceling out the need for the headache giving bureaucracy, offering insurance at the touch of a button eliminating the human insurance agent middleman. Lemonade had raised $480 million for their innovative insurance platform up-to-date.

After the IPO was all said and done. the two founders, Schreiber and Wininger hold 6.4% and 7.2% respectively, while the main company shareholder SoftBank Group is expected to keep 21.8% of the shares. Surprisingly enough, so far the numbers haven't been on the company's side, as it had reported more losses than revenue over the company's life span, when in 2017 it reported $28 million in loss, 2018 $53 million, and last year made the biggest jump in losses hitting $109 million.