loading
loading
My Oura ring and I are close. Every morning, before I put on my glasses and right after I shuffle out from under my comforter, I check my Oura app and for 7 seconds contemplate the non-jewelry silver band on my index finger. My Sleep Score rarely surprises me, sure, but this is how it’s gone, more or less, every morning sometime between 6 and 7 AM for the last three years of my life, since I got my first Oura ring in August 2023. So, in early September, I was especially interested when Oura filed its S-1, the official public disclosure of a company going public. And, this Monday morning, as I rolled over and looked at my Oura ring, it occurred to me: As Anthropic is reportedly looking to push its IPO back to November (and could push further), while OpenAI has punted to 2027, Oura is now the most consequential IPO that’s imminent. And Oura’s numbers are compelling: The wearable maker’s total revenue, for the nine months that ended June 30, was over $1.2 billion, a leap from $697.6 million for the same period in 2025. Additionally, net income jumped in that time frame, from $1.6 million in 2025 to $60.8 million in 2026. Hardware is about 80% of Oura’s revenue, but the company’s subscriber base (of which I’m part) also has momentum. On Monday, the company updated its filing to show that as it ended the 2026 fiscal year, Oura had 5.7 million paid members, marking 96% growth year-over-year. (The initial filing had 5 million.) Oura—whose backers seeking a return include Fidelity, Dragoneer, Iconiq Capital, Forerunner Ventures, and Lifeline Ventures—has certainly seen its fair share of controversy in recent years, particularly around concerns with data privacy that I’ve interviewed CEO Tom Hale about more than once. (At Brainstorm Tech last year, he told me onstage that Oura will never sell customer data.) And the company—founded in Finland by Kari Kivelä, Markku Koskela, and Petteri Lahtela in 2013—has an AI story of its own. I hosted a recent AI video feature “Inside the “Lifemaxxing” Economy: Has Fitness AI Optimization Gone Too Far?” During that chat, Hale went deeper into the company’s strategy. “AI and our particular take on it is going to be a pretty big moat,” he said then. “The data is actually the scarce resource here. Our data set [is] 42 billion hours… across a huge population.” That’s what fuels intelligence, Hale said. Still, Oura won’t be an AI IPO. And I’ve found covering Oura surprisingly refreshing throughout its rise over the last few years, as the AI boom has been growing. I started my career covering consumer M&A, so I’ll always have a soft spot for the space: Consumer companies hold special places in the intimacies of our lives. (I also know that my dad is going to read this and text me, because we both love talking about our Oura rings.) So, as I rolled over and looked at my Oura app around 7 AM from under my sheets, it occurred to me that it may be instructive that, right now, the IPO we can rely on is something I keep on my hand. Anything can happen, of course. But even in the AI era, what’s tactile matters. See you tomorrow, Allie Garfinkle X: @agarfinks Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here. Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today’s newsletter. VENTURE CAPITAL - Baselayer, a New York City-based business identity-verification and risk-management company, raised $45 million in Series A funding. M13 led the round and was joined by Torch Capital, Picus Ventures, and others. - Corridor, a New York City-based AI-native employee benefits brokerage, raised $25 million. Bain Capital Ventures led the round and was joined by BoxGroup, Definition Capital, and angel investors. - Feldera, a San Francisco-based developer of software designed to keep data-query results current without recomputing them from scratch, raised $21.5 million in funding, including $15.4 million in Series A funding led by Inovia Capital and joined by Costanoa Ventures and Battery Ventures, and a $6.1 million seed round led by Costanoa Ventures and joined by Ion Stoica. - Spott, a New York City-based developer of AI-powered recruiting software for staffing agencies, raised $21 million in Series A funding. Balderton Capital led the round and was joined by Base10 Partners, Y Combinator, and Fortino. - Clarion, a New York City-based developer of AI agents that automate medical-practice front-office tasks, raised $10 million in seed funding. Accel led the round and was joined by Y Combinator. - Blair Health, a Toronto, Canada-based virtual women’s-health and menopause-care provider, raised CAD $4.2 million ($3 million) in pre-seed funding. Business Development Bank of Canada's Thrive Venture Fund, Accelia Capital, and Ogaei led the round. - DASH Dog Food, a Boston, Mass.-based dog food company, raised $1.5 million in seed funding. Voltage Ventures led the round. IPOs - Oura, a San Francisco, Calif.-based health-focused technology company and developer of the Oura ring, plans to raise up to $2.2 billion in an offering of 50 million shares priced between $40 and $44 on the Nasdaq. The Johnson family, Forerunner Ventures, Bedford Ridge Investment Company, and Lifeline Ventures back the company. - ADARx, a San Diego, Calif.-based RNA-medicine biotech building gene-silencing injections for diseases, plans to raise up to $372.3 million in an offering of 21.9 million shares priced between $15 and $17 on the Nasdaq. The company posted $6 million in sales for the year ended June 30. OrbiMed, LAV Fund, SR One, Titanium Trust, and Bain Capital Life Sciences Investors back the company.
document fetched 2026-09-23 03:00 · canonical https://fortune.com/2026/09/22/openai-punted-anthropic-stalled-the-hottest-imminent-ipo-fits-on-your-finger-oura