Oura in talks with UAE authorities to explore health tech initiatives, CEO says

The smart ring manufacturer Oura is in talks with UAE authorities to explore health technology initiatives, as the company seeks to grow its presence in the Middle East, its chief executive has said.

The Finnish company recently secured a $900 million funding round to boost its valuation to $11 billion and sees opportunities to crack the highly competitive Middle East HealthTech market through the tech-savvy UAE, Tom Hale told The National.

“We've had a couple of conversations with the Ministry of Health, so we're here to see them further, and we just think there's some really interesting explorations for us to do here,” he said in an interview.

Mr Hale did not elaborate as discussions are still in their initial stages. Oura has an existing partnership with GluCare, a diabetes management centre in Dubai. The company does not have an official retail channel in the Emirates, but its products are available in select stores and online.

But in the UAE “it's clear that there's a lot of alignment between the visions that we have for both preventive health and wearables”, he said. Oura has also held “lots of exploratory conversations” in Saudi Arabia as part of its broader goal of reaching more users in the Middle East.

“The Middle East as a very interesting place to partner because there is a very forward-looking healthcare system,” Mr Hale said. “People here are using really interesting techniques … making the Gulf a very fertile ground for innovation and health care, which includes preventive and interventionist care – and on top of that, the adoption of wearables.”

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Oura, founded in 2013, develops smart rings that go head to head with products from Samsung Electronics and Ultrahuman. The latest Oura product, the Ring 4, recently launched a more advanced ceramic version.

Smart rings form part of the wider smart wearables category, which puts heavy emphasis on personal health notification tools for metrics such as blood oxygen, sleep tracking and hypertension.

The global smart ring market is projected to surpass $1.1 billion by 2030, from an estimated $348.6 million in 2024, growing at a compound annual rate of more than 21 per cent, data from Grand View Research shows.

Oura's latest figures show that it has sold more than 5.5 million rings, and that more than half of tho