CEO Appointment Supports Next Stage of Growth Following $2.55B Valuation and 1M Oura Rings Sold
ŌURA, the company behind the smart ring that delivers personalized health data, insights, and daily guidance to consumers, today announced Tom Hale as the new Chief Executive Officer and board member. His appointment comes at a pivotal time of growth for ŌURA and builds upon the company’s recent milestones. Earlier this month, ŌURA announced it had raised capital at a $2.55 billion valuation. In March, the company celebrated 1 million Oura Rings sold.
With over 30 years of experience in consumer technology, Hale has a proven track record of scaling businesses from growth stage to IPO. Before joining ŌURA, he was president of Momentive, where he set the Enterprise growth strategy leading to the company’s 2018 IPO. As an alumnus of Homeaway (2012 IPO, acquired by Expedia in 2016), Linden Lab, Adobe, and Macromedia, Hale’s career spans consumer product experiences, subscription business models, B2B SaaS and software, data, and hardware platforms across multiple markets, both domestic and international. As CEO of ŌURA, Hale is uniquely positioned to lead the team in bringing ŌURA’s vision of “health as a daily practice” to consumers all over the world.
Over the past year, ŌURA has become a leader in the sleep and wearable tech industries. The launch of the Oura Ring Generation 3 (Gen3), the company’s most sophisticated product yet, has resulted in more sales than all previous versions combined. With Gen3, ŌURA announced new, more sophisticated research-grade hardware sensors and software features, including daytime heart rate monitoring, live heart rate and restorative time monitoring, an improved temperature tracking system, new period prediction capabilities, and a new Explore Tab with guided content such as meditation and breathwork. Additional features, including workout heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen sensing, and an enhanced sleep staging algorithm, are coming this year. The company also introduced a new monthly Oura Membership to enhance the experience, depth of insights, and personalization for each ŌURA member in their ongoing health journey.
“ŌURA answers an urgent need: more than ever, people are focused on physical and mental health, looking to build positive habits and improve their well-being,” said Tom Hale, Chief Executive Officer of ŌURA. “By starting with sleep as the foundation of overall health, the passionate team at ŌURA has created an extraordinarily elegant solution to enable anyone to take charge of their health, all in one small, yet highly advanced ring. I’m thrilled to join the team at ŌURA as we bring positive health impact to millions of lives, leveraging our strength in sleep to reach our full vision of supporting members in every aspect of life, including recovery, activity, and proactive health management.”
ŌURA’s commitment to research allows the team to bring the most accurate features and data insights to its members. The Oura Ring has been used in illness-detection research, including in studies at the University of California, San Francisco, Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, and DTRA / DIU. Most recently, the ŌURA team has invested in women’s and reproductive health research, a traditionally underserved market in wearables. In separate studies with the University of California, San Diego, and the University of California, Berkeley around stages and risk factors associated with pregnancy, the team was able to incorporate the Period Prediction feature in the Gen3 Ring, which is just the beginning of ŌURA’s long term investment in areas of reproductive health and family planning. Additionally, because the Oura Ring is designed to read heart rate at the base of the finger as opposed to the top of the wrist, its accuracy is consistent across various skin tones. ŌURA provides a solution for the range of cultures and geographies in its community.
“Tom brings decades of technology leadership across both consumer and B2B businesses to ŌURA,” said Eurie Kim, Chairperson of the Board for ŌURA. “With his extensive knowledge of scaling consumer and enterprise membership experiences, and leading teams through hyper-growth, we couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Tom to the ŌURA team and board. The culture and values at ŌURA are very special, particularly given our international team and Finnish roots, as well as our multifaceted hardware product and science-backed software and services. Looking for an incredibly strategic and technical leader, who is also empathetic and passionate about our mission, was an extremely tall order; we found all of that and more in Tom Hale.”
More information about the Oura Ring can be found online at ouraring.com.
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