EverQuote grew to $126 million in revenue while raising less than $10 million in equity. That is rare for an internet company. Its sites let people compare auto, home and life insurance, and it earned money by passing each shopper to a carrier or local agent who paid for the referral. By the spring of 2018 it had turned 240 million visits into 35 million quote requests. In June 2018 it went public from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Two Founders, One Marketplace

Seth Birnbaum and Tomas Revesz started the company in 2008 under the name AdHarmonics. Birnbaum had co-founded Digital Guardian, a data security company, and studied mechanical engineering at MIT. The company renamed itself EverQuote in 2014. Its bet was that buying insurance felt confusing and opaque, and that a single place to start shopping would win consumers. Insurers and agents paid EverQuote for each interested shopper it sent them.

Listing Without Much Funding

EverQuote priced its IPO at $18 a share in June 2018, selling 4,687,500 shares, and listed on Nasdaq as EVER. Its revenue rose and fell with how much car insurers wanted to spend on new customers. When auto insurers cut their ad budgets, EverQuote's sales dropped, and when they returned, sales climbed again. EverQuote still trades on Nasdaq under EVER.

Cover: Young Couple Under an Umbrella in the Snow, Isoda Koryusai. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a couple sheltered under one umbrella (insurance).