Wearable firm Oura acquires digital identification startup Proxy

Oura, the corporate behind a well being monitoring ring wearable, introduced Tuesday it had bought digital identification startup Proxy in an all-equity deal.

Proxy affords digital id tech that goals to switch keys, playing cards, badges, apps and passwords. The startup mentioned it had been working to incorporate its choices on wearable gadgets in addition to telephones. 

In accordance with reporting by Bloomberg, the deal values Proxy at $165 million. The corporate’s staff, together with its founders, will be part of Oura.

“This deal expands ŌURA’s management in well being wearables and alerts our ambitions to combine digital id know-how with our present {hardware} and software program choices,” Oura CEO Tom Hale mentioned in an announcement. “We’re thrilled to collaborate with the progressive Proxy staff to increase our addressable market, paving the best way for brand new alternatives in areas reminiscent of funds, entry, safety, id and past, fueling future development.”

THE LARGER TREND

Based in Finland in 2013, Oura gives a well being and health monitoring ring that screens sleep and exercise. The newest model of the wearable, the Oura Ring Generation 3, was launched in 2021, with a new design coming final 12 months.

A few 12 months in the past, the corporate introduced it had raised an “oversubscribed” funding spherical that propelled its valuation to $2.55 billion. It is also just lately launched an offering for employers and partnered with Natural Cycles, a contraception app. 

Underneath the collaboration, clients can use the Oura Ring to trace their physique temperature as a substitute of manually taking their temperature every morning. Pure Cycles makes use of temperature knowledge and menstrual cycle data to find out a consumer’s fertile window and forestall being pregnant.

Within the acquisition announcement, Oura mentioned well being knowledge privateness is one other part of the Proxy deal. Issues about reproductive well being data have grow to be a sizzling subject within the wake of the Dobbs determination that overturned Roe v. Wade. 

“Because the healthcare panorama continues to evolve with the event of latest applied sciences, encryption and digital id will grow to be pivotal to enabling knowledge privateness throughout industries for a frictionless safety expertise,” Oura COO Michael Chapp mentioned in an announcement.