Oura eyes September IPO above $16B as investors may sell shares

Why it matters

Oura's listing would test how public investors value a consumer-health company combining premium hardware with recurring membership revenue. A large secondary component would also show how much of the proposed offering is intended to fund Oura and how much is designed to provide liquidity to existing backers.

Oura, the smart-ring maker founded by Petteri Lahtela, Kari Kivela and Markku Koskela in northern Finland, could seek a valuation above $16 billion in a U.S. initial public offering as soon as September, according to reporting published Monday by TechCrunch.

Oura and some existing investors may sell as much as $3 billion of stock, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the plans. The backers are expected to account for a significant portion of the shares sold, making the proposed listing a liquidity event alongside any capital raise for Oura. The terms remain prospective and could change before an offering is priced.

The potential IPO would cap a 13-year path from a small Oulu hardware project to a consumer-health business that said in May it was on pace to surpass five million paid members during the quarter. It would also put CEO Tom Hale in familiar territory. Hale joined Oura in 2022 after serving as president of Momentive, the former SurveyMonkey, where he helped lead its 2018 public listing.

A ring built around recovery

Lahtela, Kivela and Koskela started Oura in Oulu in 2013, drawing on product, engineering and research experience from the city's Nokia- and Polar-linked technology community.

Lahtela has said the team chose a ring because the finger provides strong physiological signals and the form can be worn continuously without the discomfort or distraction of a wrist device, according to a Nordic Business Forum profile. Sleep and recovery became the initial focus, giving Oura a specific use case for biometric data collected overnight.

According to Oura's account of its 2015 Kickstarter campaign, the project reached its $100,000 target in 15 hours and ultimately collected about $650,000 from roughly 2,400 preorders. Oura then spent successive product generations reducing the ring's size and improving its sensors and battery.

Oura has since expanded into heart health, stress, activity, reproductive health, metabolic data and AI-generated guidance. The Oura Ring 5, released on May 28, is 40% smaller by volume than Ring 4, and Oura's store lists it from $399 with week-long battery life. Oura says the device measures more than 50 health metrics.

Hale built the IPO version of Oura

The founders established the form factor. Hale's tenure has turned it into a larger recurring-revenue operation.

Hale's background spans Adobe, Macromedia, Linden Lab, HomeAway and Momentive. At Oura, he has overseen a push beyond a one-time hardware purchase. U.S. members currently pay $5.99 per month or $69.99 per year for detailed analytics, personalized guidance and most app features.

That subscription layer matters to the valuation pitch. Consumer hardware revenue can swing with launch cycles, inventory and holiday demand. Membership revenue gives Oura a recurring stream tied to accounts rather than individual rings. In May, Oura said paid membership had grown more than fourfold in two years and that its annual membership renewal rate exceeded 80%. Its confidential registration means investors have yet to see the financial detail needed to assess retention by customer cohort, hardware margins and profitability.

Oura has supplied the top-line growth figures itself. In October 2025, the company said it had sold more than 5.5 million rings, generated over $500 million in 2024 revenue and expected 2025 sales to exceed $1 billion. Those figures help frame the gap between Oura's reported 2025 valuation and the proposed IPO price. A public registration statement would show how much of that growth came from hardware, memberships and newer health services.

TechCrunch described Oura on August 24 as a company with more than 900 employees. In May, Oura said it had distribution through over 4,600 retail locations and more than 1,200 organizational partners. Those figures give Oura a broader sales base than its direct-to-consumer origins, while adding the operating costs and channel complexity that public investors will scrutinize.

Oura has also planted a flag in the United States before the proposed listing. On August 6, Oura announced the purchase of a 56,179-square-foot headquarters at 500 Pine Street in San Francisco. Oura said its Finnish operation will continue to lead core engineering, product and innovation work, while San Francisco has become the center of gravity for leadership and cross-functional teams.

The valuation moved faster than the calendar

A valuation above $16 billion would represent an increase of roughly 45% from Oura's last private financing in less than a year.

Oura said in a December 2024 funding announcement that its $200 million Series D included Fidelity Management & Research Company and Dexcom and brought the company's valuation to $5.2 billion. By September 2025, Oura's reported valuation had more than doubled to approximately $10.9 billion.

The 2025 financing record carries a discrepancy. TechCrunch initially reported an $875 million Series E in September at about $10.9 billion. Oura later announced more than $900 million on October 14 at approximately $11 billion. The round was led by Fidelity Management & Research, with ICONIQ, Whale Rock and Atreides participating.

The proposed secondary sales offer those investors and other holders a path to turn part of that paper gain into cash. The eventual split between newly issued shares and investor-owned stock will shape how much money reaches Oura's balance sheet. A $3 billion offering dominated by secondary stock would serve a different purpose from a primary raise of the same size.

Oura also reaches the market with well-funded competition. Samsung sells the Galaxy Ring alongside its phones and watches, while Ultrahuman and RingConn compete directly in smart rings. IDC data reported by TechCrunch put Oura at 85% of the U.S. smart-ring market at the end of 2025, giving it a substantial domestic category lead to defend.

Whoop, which uses a screen-free band and subscription model, raised $575 million at a $10.1 billion valuation in March. Both Oura and Whoop have moved beyond fitness scores toward women's health, blood testing and broader health guidance, raising product-development costs while giving each business more ways to sell health services.

On May 21, Oura confidentially submitted a draft Form S-1 registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a TechCrunch report published the following day. The filing did not settle the final exchange, share count, price range or timing.

The founders' original bet was that consumers would wear a small sensor continuously if it stayed comfortable and delivered useful feedback. Public investors will now have to value the resulting mix of ring sales and membership revenue without public data yet available on profitability, hardware margins or customer retention by cohort. The planned secondary sales add another question: how much of the offering will finance Oura, and how much will cash out the investors who backed its rapid private-market repricing.