Oura, widely known for its popular smart ring wearable device, announced last week that it has raised an additional $75 million in funding as a part of a Series D round, bringing its total valuation to nearly $5.2 billion. The funding was primarily spearheaded by Dexcom, a leading medical device company that focuses on diabetes diagnostics and glucose monitoring.
Oura has become incredibly popular in the last few years. The company, originally from Finland, launched its first wearable ring product nearly a decade ago to provide users with a better way to track sleep patterns. Since then, it has witnessed immense success and has continued to grow exponentially. The latest ring technology collects more than 20 biometrics to provide users with perspectives on their overall well-being and constitution, ranging from heart rate and activity metrics to sleep and body temperature monitoring.
The partnership between Dexcom and the wearable ring company is intended to provide users with seamless integration between the two ecosystems: “With this partnership, Dexcom and ŌURA will launch integrations enabling data to flow between Dexcom and ŌURA products, including Dexcom glucose biosensors, Dexcom apps, Oura Ring and the Oura App, so shared users can track their glucose levels and understand the impact of behaviors and biology on their metabolic health. Indeed, Dexcom’s and Oura’s products have the potential to be incredibly symbiotic, as both aim to provide users with granular insights into their own health metrics.
Matt Dolan, EVP of Strategy and Corporate Development at Dexcom, explains that the partnership provides “the opportunity to redefine the category again, integrating data from Dexcom glucose biosensors with the continuous insights and metrics measured by Oura Ring. This powerful combination will attract new shared customers who want to better understand the link between activity, sleep, nutrition and their glucose.”
Oura’s success comes at a time when the demand and interest in wearables by consumers is at an all time high. Research indicates that the health wearables market will continue to skyrocket in value in the coming years, with an expected CAGR of nearly $66 billion by 2025 and $520 billion over the next ten years. Accordingly, Oura is not the only company that is trying to dominate this growing market. Other prominent industry leaders in this space have created their own devices with a steadfast user following. Take for example Google, which has its own line of smartwatches and FitBit devices that provide users with numerous health insights. Apple is also investing billions of dollars into the healthcare market paired alongside its Apple Watch; the company’s latest generation of smartwatches can monitor not only sleep patterns and heart rhythms, but can also watch for signs of sleep apnea and fluctuating oxygen saturation.
In many ways, the competition between these technology and wearable developers is healthy, as it forces them to continuously innovate and provide value to consumers. Furthermore, it also empowers consumers with the ability to choose the device that is most suitable for them. Nonetheless, though it is still early days with this technology, there is a lot of promise in this arena of personalized healthcare.
