Hippo, a 6-year-old insurtech firm that focuses on home insurance, is merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), in a $5B deal that will take the company public.

Why should we care?
Hippo is the latest insurtech player to go public after pay-per-mile auto insurer Metromile entered into a $1.9B SPAC deal to go public, a transaction that closed in February. Rumors of Hippo’s potential SPAC route to the public markets have been percolating in recent weeks, further to a $350M investment from Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company in November of last year. The company is merging with Reinvent Technology Partners, a SPAC established by Zynga founder Mark Pincus and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, but Hippo said it was planning to go public in July. Going public will allow it to continue along its growth trajectory, building on acquisitions of Spinnaker Insurance last year and home-maintenance platform Sheltr the prior year. Hippo is also transitioning from being a partner to insurance firms to becoming a direct competitor. Hippo’s technology uses aerial imagery to review roof conditions and uses building permits to gather details about a property.