WMOT 89.5 | LISTENER-POWERED RADIO INDEPENDENT AMERICAN ROOTS
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Smart-ring maker Oura set to put a ring on Wall Street

A woman puts on an Oura ring, a wearable health tracking device, whose maker is slated to go public in one of this year's blockbuster IPOs.
Emilie Megnien
/
AP
A woman puts on an Oura ring, a wearable health tracking device, whose maker is slated to go public in one of this year's blockbuster IPOs.

Oura, the maker of smart rings used by millions of people to track sleep and heart rate patterns, plans to go public this week in one of this year's biggest IPOs.

The company, whose sensor-laden rings have adorned the hands of celebrities including Lady Gaga and Coco Gauff, wants to raise up to $2.2 billion in the share sale, valuing the firm at around $15 billion.

This week's expected IPO marks one of the most lucrative turns for the supercharged wellness craze. Oura's rings have run circles around competitors, with growing profits. The company's first financial disclosure highlighted its massive trove of users' health data — and a loyal base of subscribers willing to pay a monthly fee.

Oura's success is "as much about this hardware aspect as it is about the subscription model and the revenue that comes from that," said Forrester analyst Arielle Trzcinski. Plus, "the fact that folks not only start wearing it and become paying members, but also that they wear it roughly five days a week, which is significant."

Sales of smart rings overall have been growing faster than sales of smartwatches, as more people look for health trackers that are lighter, more discreet or screen-free. While Apple has dominated the smartwatch category, it doesn't make a ring device. In that space, Oura has outrun rivals, including Samsung and Ultrahuman.

Oura says it sold 3.6 million rings between mid-2025 and mid-2026. And the brand attracts many first-timers: For about a third of its new customers, the ring is their first wearable device.

Oura's rings cost between $350 and $500, and the company also charges $6 a month for users to see most of their data and personalized health insights. Oura's pitch is that its rings can track more than 50 health metrics, including heart rate, body temperature, stress levels and sleep patterns.

A detailed view of the Oura ring of Coco Gauff of the United States before her Women's Singles First Round match against Zeynep Sonmez of Turkey on Day Three of the 2026 US Open at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 01, 2026 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City.
Patrick Smith / Getty Images North America
A detailed view of the Oura ring of Coco Gauff of the United States before her Women's Singles First Round match against Zeynep Sonmez of Turkey on Day Three of the 2026 US Open at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 01, 2026 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City.

Since its founding in 2013, the company says it's "amassed one of the largest and highest-quality longitudinal biometric datasets in consumer health" with nearly 42 billion hours of physiological data. The firm promotes its plans to expand its use of AI and machine learning to make predictions and recommendations.

The accuracy of Oura's data has also come under the spotlight in a recent class-action lawsuit. It alleges that the company has misled users about the quality of its sleep tracking. Oura disputes the allegations.

The smart-ring maker has reported growing profits. Oura's filing says its ranks of paying members doubled from 2024 to 2025 and again this year, to 5 million people. Its revenue jumped 74% from 2024 to 2025. Net profit was almost $61 million between October 2025 and June 2026.

Oura, founded in Finland and based in San Francisco, is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday under the ticker symbol OURA.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Alina Selyukh is a business correspondent at NPR.