The Finns have their own way of pulling money out of American pension funds. Oura, the maker of the smart ring for health tracking, has filed a confidential Form S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Translation: the company is prepping an initial public offering (IPO). The ring from Helsinki is heading for Wall Street.

Oura was founded in 2015 and has since become the leader in the discreet health-tracker category - with the advantage of not looking like a watch. The competitors are Fitbit, Garmin and Apple, who run their own smartwatches and have started eyeing sub-segments of the market. The Oura ring measures activity, sleep, a daily „readiness" score and a slew of other metrics, for users around the world.

By September 2025, the company said it had sold 5.5 million rings, up from 2.5 million a year earlier. A doubling in 12 months. That same September, Series E brought in 875 million dollars (around 770 million euros) at a valuation of 11 billion dollars - more than double the 5 billion from 2024.

Oura recently launched its own AI model aimed specifically at women's health. That tells you the company's strategic focus is on the women's market - a segment the rest of the wearable industry, dominated by men from Apple Watch to Garmin, has under-served for years. Finnish engineers spotted an opening some competitors will rush to copy.

The IPO filing is „confidential" - meaning the SEC reviews the S-1 form before it goes public. That allows a few rounds of revision before the market sees the final package. The question for investors will be whether Oura can hold this growth trajectory, or whether it will follow the post-IPO cooldown trend we saw at Fitbit and other predecessors.