Wearable Health Tech Maker Oura Raises $100 Million

The wearable fitness manufacturer Oura announced a $100 million Series C on Tuesday (May 4), a funding round that brings the company’s total financing to just over $148 million.

As Forbes pointed out, Oura has had a busy year, with several sports leagues — the NBA, WNBA and NASCAR among them — using their technology to track whether athletes could be getting sick. That would be useful for the sports world in normal circumstances, but the technology has become particularly valuable in the age of COVID, as the Finnish company’s rings can measure temperature spikes.

“The wearables industry is transitioning from activity trackers to health platforms that can improve people’s lives,” CEO Harpreet Singh Rai said in a news release. “Oura focused first on sleep because it’s a daily habit, and lack of sleep has been linked to worsening health conditions including diabetes, cardiac disease, Alzheimer’s, cancer, poor mental health and more.”

The funding round was led by Temasek, Jazz Venture Partners, The Chernin Group, Bedford Ridge Capital, One Capital from Japan and Elysian Park, a fund connected to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Returning investors Forerunner Ventures, Square, MSD Capital, Lifeline Ventures, Metaplanet Holdings, Next Ventures and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff also took part in the funding round, Forbes said.

Oura said that this funding round will fuel its hardware and software development, as well as hiring for a number of key roles.

As PYMNTS reported last week, word of the funding round brought the company’s valuation to $800 million.

Research has shown that Oura rings on people’s fingers — along with other wearable tech like the Apple Watch or the Fitbit — could be used to determine whether COVID-19 symptoms were beginning to manifest.

Bloomberg valued the worldwide wearable tech industry at $37.1 billion as of last year, but that number could balloon to more than $104 billion over the next six years, partially due to pandemic-related concerns.