Health and Hardware

Oura’s $875m Series E has ignited renewed excitement in the wearables and tech-enabled health and wellness space, serving as a bellwether for investor and consumer appetite. Against the backdrop of rapid innovation and a crowded field, this week we will be deconstructing the forces driving the new era of health hardware, the shifting terrain for software, and what is really fueling (and threatening) sustainable growth.

‍Market Movers: Latest Financing & Product Updates

‍The wearables market makes up the lion’s share of the broader tech-enabled health and wellness market (including smart fitness devices, connected gym equipment, fitness apps, and interactive fitness services). Oura and Whoop are the emerging players driving growth but Apple, Samsung, and Garmin are the incumbents, with the US companies accounting for 27.4% global market share.

Oura’s Explosive Momentum: Oura’s recent $875m Series E valued the company at $10.9bn, up 118% from their $5bn valuation back in December 2024 (TechCrunch). However, this valuation almost 1:1 reflects the company’s sharp increase in unit sales. Oura has sold 5.5 million rings to-date, with 3 million sold in the last year (+120%). This funding round increases the total amount the company has raised to $1.2bn.

While this shows clear momentum and investor excitement for consumer hardware (an industry with a large graveyard), it’s clear that it is more than just consumer demand that is driving this. For Oura, B2B contracts represent 23% of new ring sales, as employers are integrating Oura into their health benefits packages. The global corporate wellness market is $68.4bn. The Oura ring product, more focused on holistic wellness, generally serves this market better than Whoop by focusing on features around daytime stress and resilience, integrations with Headspace and Natural Cycles and a lesser focus on fitness (automated, basic fitness tracking).

‍Whoop Stays Focused on Athlete Optimization: Oura’s main emergent competitor, Whoop, has not raised since 2021 ($200m, led by Softbank Vision Fund II), bringing their total raised to >$400m since the company initially raised its Seed back in 2013. Their latest round in 2021 valued the company at $3.6bn (Whoop). The company’s only disclosure of unit sales was in late 2022, when the company surpassed 1 million paying members.Since this fundraise 4 years ago, Whoop has doubled down on building products for their ideal customer profile (intense activity and athletic performance), and recently launched two different products, the Whoop 5.0 and the Whoop Medical Grade (MG). Both products provide comprehensive activity and strain tracking for >145 activities. As the name suggests, the latter also provides medical-grade features such as ECG and heart screening, and blood pressure estimates.

‍Garmin’s slow and steady innovation: While Garmin is an incumbent, it is not complacent. The wearables giant, which got its start in GPS technology, but has focused heavily on outdoor adventurers and athletes over the past twenty years. They launched their first fitness GPS watch line, the Forerunner, in 2003. Since then, they have launched multiple additional watch lines, a multitude of sports specific hardware products for everything from cycling to diving, as well as subscription services to added features (LTE connectivity, premium maps, child and dog tracking, etc). Fitness and Outdoor segments now account for 58% of the overall $6.3bn in 2024 sales, up from $2.87bn in 2015.

Garmin is also a major player in the corporate wellness space with Garmin Health (launched in 2015), supporting both preventative health and long-term behavior change. They also partner with insurers, wellness providers, and research organizations, embedding their devices at scale in enterprise wellness programs.

‍Grow with Caution: Market Headwinds‍

‍Consumer Wellness Software is Fighting, but Losing

‍While consumer interest and buy-in to their health has positively impacted hardware-led companies, software-only platforms such as Calm and Headspace (who combined have 60-70% of the meditation app market) continue to struggle to maintain engagement and typically only retain 4.7% of users after 30 days. We hypothesize that revenue has been able to remain afloat due to significant enterprise partnerships: Calm works with ~3,500 organizations (including large groups such as NBCUniversal and Fox Corp), and Headspace similarly supports ~4,000 organizations (including Disney, Paramount, Sony, Vox Media, Buzzfeed, and the NBA). Long-term, we believe that software-only solutions will struggle to maintain market share, pushed out by companies (like Oura and Whoop) who are able to secure a behavioral moat with consumers through a physical product.

‍Is Enterprise Misrepresenting Growth?

‍Enterprises have accelerated adoption of formal wellness programs in recent years: 87% of companies in 2025 report having a formal wellness program, up from only 61% in 2020. The benefits are clear:

• 72% of companies lowered healthcare costs after a wellness program
• Workplace wellness can cut employee absences by up to 16%
• 89% of HR leaders report fewer sick days among staff after rollout
• Every wellness dollar spent saves $2.73 in absence-related costs

The dollars funneled into corporate wellness are going toward the tech-enabled fitness market; ~40% of the spend is going toward health risk assessments, such as biometric screenings, blood tests, and other health monitoring programs.

While enterprise contracts and workplace wellness programs are fueling much of the growth for hardware startups, the long-term sustainability of this “wellness at work” model remains unclear. Employers are eager to differentiate and reduce health costs, but engagement often fluctuates after the novelty of the hardware wears off.

There’s a looming question: How much of B2B-driven sales represent actual end-user stickiness, versus fleeting adoption mandated (or incentivized) by employers? The risk for hardware and software alike is over-reliance on corporate wellness contracts that could retract if budgets tighten, benefits strategies shift, or ROI plateaus. Ultimately, the winners will be those who create persistent user habits (inside and outside the workplace) supported by a product ecosystem that adapts to both individual and organizational needs.

‍Emerging Technologies

‍The competitive landscape is more congested than ever. Leaderboards, gamified points, and social “fitness challenges” are now ubiquitous, diluting their novelty and compelling companies to look for the next engagement lever. The market is characterized not just by hardware innovation but by design convergence: most wearables now offer similar core metrics and features, making differentiation and user loyalty harder to maintain. In this environment, brands must find ways to deliver measurable, personalized value (and in some cases, clinically-validated outcomes) to defend against churn and commoditization.

Technology to watch:

• Localized Compute / AI: The next frontier is on-device artificial intelligence, enabling hyper-personalized, real-time feedback without sacrificing user privacy. Processing data at the edge (rather than in the cloud) allows for tailored guidance, supports privacy compliance, and reduces latency. We expect more AI-powered “wellness coaches” that learn from your daily signals, context, and behavioral patterns, all while keeping sensitive data on your device. We also expect wearables to start incorporating advanced LLM-driven conversation navigation and interactivity.
• XR (Extended Reality): Hands-free and passive health monitoring, combined with AR interfaces, is coming to mainstream wearables. Meta’s CTRL Labs and Oakley athlete-focused smart glasses now blend biometric and performance feedback directly into what you see, making health insights glanceable and actionable within daily life—not just during workouts. The integration with enterprise wellness platforms will further blur the line between “work tech” and “life tech”.

• Longevity Technology: Beyond fitness, the wellness market is being reshaped by breakthroughs in longevity science. Advances in continuous metabolic tracking, sleep optimization, and preventative diagnostics are enabling a new category of products focused on extending healthspan—not just tracking step counts or calorie burn. Expect hardware startups to partner more closely with cutting-edge research labs and biotech companies as consumers demand actionable, personalized insights into longevity.

Takeaway: Oura’s explosive growth, reflected in its $875m Series E and rapid sales acceleration, and Whoop’s continued focus on high-performance athletes underscore the rapid evolution and investor enthusiasm in consumer health hardware. But what is most remarkable is how emerging technologies like on-device AI and XR interfaces are pushing wearables beyond fitness into realms of personalized wellness, privacy, and longevity; this signals how the lines between entertainment, health, and daily life continue to blur, with lessons for how tech can drive real engagement and behavior change both in and out of game worlds.