Insurtech Lemonade looks for sugar in IPO markets. Its biggest expense? Marketing

“Harness technology and social impact to be the world’s most loved insurance company,” Insurtech Lemonade’s Monday filing for an initial public offering reads.

But for a company aiming to disrupt the sleepy insurance industry with machine learning, marketing and sales remains the real bread and butter.

Lemonade, which sells renters’ and homeowners’ insurance, more than doubled its sales and marketing expenses in 2019 to $89.1 million. Its technology development spend, despite also nearly doubling, stood at a mere fraction of that: $9.8 million. 

As a direct-to-consumer brand, Lemonade spent heavily on marketing in a bid to spread its brand’s name,