Maker of Health Monitor Oura Ring Hires CEO for Pre-IPO Expansion

Finnish wearable-tech startup Oura Health will be getting a new leader in Tom Hale, Bloomberg wrote Monday (April 25), with the company promising more expansion before its eventual initial public offering (IPO).

Hale is the former president of SurveyMonkey owner Momentive Global, which he helped to take public in 2018. Hale will succeed Singh Rai, who left in December, and the report noted that he’ll be in charge of trying to grow Oura’s subscription business.

Oura Health is the creator of the Oura Ring, a ring that tracks the wearer’s sleep, heart rate and body temperature, among other things. Per the report, Hale’s arrival comes as there’s more demand for things like wearable health technology.

Hale has said one of his plans is to broaden Oura’s appeal to businesses, creating more ways that data collected by the ring can be used in health research.

“There are many opportunities,” Hale said in an interview. “The ring can be used for illness detection and return to work. There’s a ton of work to be done in organizations around fitness.”

Oura’s competition is intensifying, though, as Apple recently added features to its Apple Watch like a bigger screen and the ability to capture an electrocardiogram, which is a measure of electrical signals to monitor heart health.

Last year, PYMNTS wrote that Oura’s ability to measure sleep was seen as one of the more important facets of the company’s mission. Former CEO Rai said the intention was to highlight an oft-overlooked health concern.

See also: Oura Sleep Rings And The Expanded Future Of Wearables

However, the company has expanded its work and added other things like fitness tracking, with several investors looking to get into that trend.

The wearable ring reportedly has three daily scores for sleep, activity and readiness. At the time, Rai said the company had been working on an “insight engine” which would give more personalized recommendations to improve their health. Rai also said the company wanted to “validate and prove” its research.