Carousel Capital (“Carousel”) announced today that it has partnered with management to recapitalize Ethos Risk Services, LLC (“Ethos” or the “Company”), a leading tech-enabled provider of fraud claims investigation services, including field surveillance, digital fraud investigation and special investigations.
Ethos is a full-service risk mitigation firm headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida. Ethos provides nationwide and international coverage from a team of over 500 investigators servicing all 50 states and over 70 countries. Founded in 2006, the Company has provided comprehensive fraud management to insurance companies, self-insured employers, attorneys and third-party administrators within the insurance industry. Ethos is dedicated to its vision of being the most tech-enabled, customer-centric investigative services company, partnering with clients across the globe to combat fraud.
“The Ethos team has built a disruptive service model that delivers significant value to insurance carriers in identifying and mitigating instances of fraud,” said Jason Schmidly, a Managing Partner of Carousel. “Under Micah Smith’s leadership, Ethos has experienced an exciting trajectory of growth and we look forward to supporting their continued journey to deliver the best possible customer service experience to their clients.”
“Carousel’s track record working with high-growth, tech-enabled business models, combined with their institutional experience in the insurance claims sector, made this partnership the ideal fit for Ethos’ next phase of growth. Our partnership with Carousel will allow us to accelerate our growth through investment in technology and the continued expansion of our investigator workforce to better serve the needs of national insurance carriers,” said Micah Smith, CEO of Ethos.
“Insurance carriers are faced with a confluence of increasingly complex regulatory and data privacy concerns along with a growing incidence of fraud. Through our partnership with Ethos, we plan on continuing to address these issues through accelerated investments in technology and human capital to enhance Ethos’ impressive track record of organic and inorganic growth, ” said Peter Clark, a Partner of Carousel.
The transaction was funded with equity from Carousel Capital’s fifth fund. Senior debt financing was provided by Freeport Financial Partners LLC. K&L Gates LLP served as legal advisor.
