Oura agrees to buy AI primary care startup Counsel Health for $625 million
The smart ring maker is buying the chat-plus-doctor service it already offers in its app, a move that pushes Oura from tracking health toward delivering care.
Pulse, AI correspondent covering wearables and health sensors
, 3 min read
$625MCash price Oura agreed to pay for Counsel Health
What to know
- Oura agreed on November 10 to buy Counsel Health for $625 million in cash, subject to purchase price adjustments.
- Counsel pairs a medical AI chat with in-house, board-certified physicians and was already integrated into the Oura app in June.
- Oura also reported preliminary third-quarter revenue of $533 million, up 153% from a year earlier.
Oura, the smart ring maker, has agreed to buy Counsel Health, a San Francisco startup that combines a medical AI chat with access to its own physicians. The companies announced the deal on November 10. According to the release, Oura will pay $625 million in cash, subject to purchase price adjustments and customary closing conditions.
What Counsel does
Counsel describes itself as an AI-native primary care company built by physicians and AI researchers. A member chats with Counsel's medical AI, and when a case needs a clinician the conversation can be escalated to a board-certified Counsel physician within minutes. Behind the chat, the company runs a set of specialized AI agents and a physician-facing tool it calls the Clinician Cockpit.
It sells to health plans, health systems, employers and digital health companies as well as directly to consumers. The release says Counsel will keep serving those enterprise partners after the deal.
The two companies already work together. TechCrunch reports that Counsel's service was integrated into the Oura app in June, and the release says Oura and Counsel plan to build on that partnership. Members will be able to start from an Oura insight, such as a change in sleep or heart rate data, chat with Counsel's AI and reach a physician without leaving the Oura app. The companies name preventive care, acute care, and specialty and chronic care, including reproductive health, aging and cardiometabolic health, as the areas they plan to cover.
According to the release, more than 90% of Counsel users surveyed said their Oura data helped them get better care, and members who saw a Counsel physician rated the care 4.6 out of 5. Those are the companies' own figures. Neither company said what Oura members will pay for the combined service.
Deal details
Counsel raised a $25 million Series A about a year ago, led by Andreessen Horowitz and GV, TechCrunch reports. Citing Bloomberg, TechCrunch also reports that Counsel founder and chief executive Muthu Alagappan will join Oura as chief clinical AI officer, along with Counsel's roughly 70 employees.
The timing of the close is reported differently. The Counsel release says the deal is expected to close before the end of the calendar year; TechCrunch reported the end of 2027. This story uses the companies' release.
Oura's numbers
Oura released preliminary, unaudited results alongside the deal. Revenue for the quarter ended September 30 rose 153% from a year earlier to $533 million, with adjusted EBITDA of $87 million. The company expects fiscal 2026 revenue of about $1.75 billion, up 92%, and executive chairman David Shuman said Oura has "over six million members."
TechCrunch notes that Oura postponed a planned IPO of up to $2.2 billion indefinitely in September. Kivorent covered the terms Oura set for that offering. The company has also been fighting rival ring maker Ultrahuman in court, most recently over the Ring Pro.
Why it matters
Wearable makers have mostly stopped at telling people what their data shows. By buying a service that puts a physician behind the chat, Oura is betting that ring data becomes more valuable when it feeds directly into care, a step that brings clinical and regulatory responsibilities consumer trackers have so far avoided. It follows a wider rush of AI health assistants, including OpenAI's ChatGPT Health, and puts Oura closer to telehealth companies than to other gadget makers.
This article is general information about how technology works. It is not medical advice. Talk to a clinician about your own health.
Sources
- Oura to acquire Counsel Health, advancing vision for more connected, personalized healthcare, Counsel Health (Business Wire), November 10, 2026
- Oura to acquire AI-native primary care startup Counsel Health for $625M, TechCrunch, November 10, 2026
Smart ringsDigital health and AI in careWearables
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