THE CRUNCH
Oura has announced it is acquiring Counsel Health, an AI-native primary care startup, for $625 million. Counsel's service, which combines a chat-based medical AI with access to licensed physicians, has been integrated into the Oura app since June. Users can get personalised medical advice from the AI and chat with a doctor when needed, with answers drawing on biometric data from their wearables.
The companies plan to build on the existing partnership across preventative care, acute care for episodic health concerns, and specialty and chronic care, including reproductive and cardiometabolic health. Counsel's roughly 70 employees will join Oura, and its CEO Muthu Alagappan becomes Oura's chief clinical AI officer. Counsel will also keep serving enterprise partners such as health plans, health systems and employers beyond Oura's membership, and Alagappan says it plans to expand its network of on-demand physicians, currently about 50 people.
The deal lands a few weeks after Oura postponed its up to $2.2 billion IPO indefinitely, citing what it called uncertainty in the IPO market. The acquisition comes alongside strong results: Oura says quarterly revenue grew 153% year over year to $533 million, and it generated roughly $1.75 billion for fiscal 2026, up 92%. The company was valued at $11 billion after a $900 million funding round in October 2025.
Timing of the close is reported differently: Oura says it expects the deal to complete before the end of the year, while TechCrunch reports it is expected to close before the end of 2027.