Health-tracking smart ring maker Oura to list on US stock market

Valuation above $11bn expected for firm whose fans include Prince Harry, Jennifer Aniston and Kim Kardashian

Fans of Oura are accustomed to using its trendy smart rings to fastidiously monitor their health but now investors are preparing to track a new metric: its share price.

The company’s filing to list imminently on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York was made public on Thursday.

Founded in Finland in 2013 and now headquartered in San Francisco, Oura makes smart rings that have become a must-have item among wellbeing enthusiasts, with celebrity fans and ambassadors including Jennifer Aniston, Prince Harry, Kim Kardashian and the Spider-Man actor Tom Holland.

The ring allows users to track metrics including heart rate, temperature and sleep quality.

The rings sell for $349 to $499 (about £258-£360), with subscribers then paying $5.99 a month or $69.99 a year for full access to data on their health. The US filing showed a thriving, high-margin business, which brought in $1.21bn in revenue in the nine months to 30 June, up 74% year on year.

Oura made its first profit only last year, notching up $1.6m, and followed that with a $60.8m profit in the nine months to the end of June. It is aiming to list on the Nasdaq as soon as later this month, with a valuation expected well above the $11bn it was valued at when it raised $900m last year.

Of particular appeal to investors is the after-sales subscription business, which the company said has reached a base of 5 million users, doubling year on year, and which had gross margins of 89% in the nine months to 30 June.

Membership revenue came to $240.5m over the nine months, up 121% year over year and hardware sales accounted for about 80% of revenues. Subscribers opened the app more than 3.5 times a day on average, the company said. The former Friends star Aniston has said publicly she is “addicted” to checking her Oura stats.

Subscribers are skewed towards women, who account for 72%, and 42% of the total base are aged 30 to 45, with 31% under 29.

Oura said it has collected almost 42bn hours of biometric physiological data from users across 50 metrics.

The latest product, Oura Ring 5, went on sale in May at $399 and is 40% smaller than its predecessor . It records heart rate, blood oxygen, temperature and motion, tracking more than 50 metrics involved in sleep, activity, readiness, stress, resilience, heart and women’s health.