Oura Health, a Finnish health technology company, has moved its total private funding to 12.5M€ and appointed new board members with US industry expertise to strengthen its foothold in the US market.
Oura Health is the maker of Oura ring, a wearable device in the form of a ring that guides its wearers towards better sleep, recovery and readiness by analyzing the body’s sleep, daily rhythms, activity levels and physiological responses.
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Approximately 60 percent of active Oura users and pre-orders for the new Oura ring come from the US.
Our Health CEO Petteri Lahtela has been appointed the position of Oura Health President and Chief Innovation Officer; Lahtela will focus on developing new products and services. Oura Health President Harpreet Rai is now the CEO of the company. Others joining the Oura Health board are industry specialists Stephen Friend and Kevin Lin.
“The successful launch of the new Oura ring shows the level of innovation and craftsmanship that Oura Health is capable of. Moving forward, our main goal is to drive awareness and sales in our largest market, while doubling down on the very innovation that brought us here in the first place,” says Harpreet Rai, CEO of Oura Heath.
Oura Health CIO Petteri Lahtela said he had great respect for the new CEO Rai. “He knows the US market and can lead us towards growth and greater market penetration. I’m excited for this next phase for Oura, and am looking forward to focusing on new innovative products and services which I am most passionate about,” he said.
Harpreet Rai, who is based in San Francisco, has a long background in finance. He previously led investments in technology, media and telecom at New York-based Hedge Fund Eminence Capital. Before joining Eminence, Harpreet worked at Morgan Stanley in their M&A group. Mr. Rai joined Ouraring Inc., a subsidiary of Oura Health, as President in 2017.
Mr. Lahtela emphasized the success of Oura Health in creating a new category within wearables by combining science, technology and design. “Bringing sleep and recovery from daily mental and physical strain into the core of the user experience with the first generation Oura ring was the right choice. Our users are very committed and our retention rates are much higher compared to wearables in general. We need to continue innovating in all areas to maintain our pioneering position,” Mr. Lahtela said.
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Stephen H. Friend, M.D., Ph.D., is the Chairman of the Board and former President of Sage Bionetworks, a non-profit organization that provides the tools and environment to conduct dynamic, large-scale collaborative biomedical research. Dr. Friend worked most recently at Apple Inc. where he utilized his expertise to find ways to change the lives of people suffering from diseases. Currently, he’s designing a virtual institute to help people so they might navigate their own paths between health and disease.
Kevin Lin, the co-founder and former COO of Twitch, has also been appointed chairman of the board. He brings along his vast experience in scaling teams, building communities, growing sales and developing monetization strategies.
