Oura Buys AI Primary Care Startup Counsel Health for 625 Million Dollars

Oura said Tuesday it will acquire Counsel Health, an AI-native primary care startup, for $625 million, weeks after the smart ring maker postponed its own initial public offering indefinitely.

Counsel Health combines a chat-based AI medical assistant with access to licensed physicians. Its service was integrated into the Oura app in June, letting members get personalized medical advice from Counsel's AI and escalate to a doctor when needed, TechCrunch reported. The companies said they now plan to expand the partnership into preventative, acute, specialty and chronic care.

Oura chief executive Tom Hale said in a joint statement that the deal lets members "take action on their health across a range of needs, from quick questions and prescriptions to lab results, chronic care, and referrals."

"We've built medical AI around trust, safety and responsibility, keeping physicians in the loop for clinical decisions." – Muthu Alagappan, Counsel Health CEO

Alagappan, who co-founded Counsel Health, will join Oura as chief clinical AI officer along with the startup's roughly 70 employees, Bloomberg reported. He said Oura's biometric data "gives clinicians objective context, trended biometrics, and member engagement to deliver more informed care," and that the two companies' teams "bonded over a joint vision, shared culture, and mission" while negotiating the deal over the past few months.

Counsel Health raised a $25 million Series A a year ago led by Andreessen Horowitz and GV; PitchBook estimates the company had raised $36 million in total before the acquisition. The deal is expected to close before the end of 2027, according to TechCrunch. Oura and Counsel Health did not disclose whether the purchase price is in cash, stock or a combination of both.

The acquisition follows Oura's decision in September to shelve an IPO that could have valued the company at up to $2.2 billion, citing "uncertainty in the IPO market." TechCrunch had previously reported that the shelved offering would have been structured mostly as a payday for existing shareholders rather than a vehicle to raise significant new capital. Oura said Tuesday its revenue for the quarter ended September 30 grew 153% year over year to $533 million, and that full fiscal year 2026 revenue was approximately $1.75 billion, up 92% from the prior year. The company was valued at $11 billion after a $900 million funding round in October 2025.

Oura has dominated the smart ring market for several years, but rivals including RingConn and Ultrahuman have been gaining ground, pushing the company to expand beyond hardware. Oura said Counsel will keep serving its existing enterprise partners and aims to extend its AI-native care model beyond Oura's own membership base.

The deal comes as AI's role in clinical decision-making draws scrutiny elsewhere; ainewstoday.net reported last month that a Microsoft-backed study found an AI system outperformed physicians on complex diagnostic cases. Neither Oura nor Counsel Health detailed how Counsel's AI distinguishes cases that require a licensed physician from those it handles on its own.