Smart Ring Maker ŌURA is doubling down on privacy and acquiring stealth-mode startup Proxy, who has developed digital identity signal technology that can be stored on mobile devices and replaces the multitude of keys, cards, badges, apps, and passwords to enhance data privacy in an increasingly decentralized world. The all-equity deal valued Proxy at $165M according to reporting by Bloomberg; the Proxy team, including its founders, will join ŌURA as full-time employees.
In a blog post reflecting on his first year with the company ŌURA CEO Tom Hale shared that conversations with Proxy started the week Roe v. Wade was overturned. He explains: “Members trust ŌURA with intimate health data, and we take that responsibility very seriously. We will never sell our members’ data, and we hold ourselves to the highest standards of security and privacy. In May 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned in the US Supreme Court, which underscored our company’s imperative to continue to secure our members’ data. We witnessed the trust our members put in us to protect them and knew that we had to do more. That same week, we started conversations with the Proxy team.”
Hale continues: “ŌURA was founded on a culture of innovation, and has put great emphasis on building broad protection for our intellectual property. This deal expands ŌURA’s leadership in health wearables and signals our ambitions to integrate digital identity technology with our existing hardware and software offerings. We are thrilled to collaborate with the innovative Proxy team to expand our addressable market, paving the way for new opportunities in areas such as payments, access, security, identity, and beyond, fueling future growth. With the acquisition of Proxy, we have the most comprehensive portfolio in the smart ring space.”
ŌURA COO Michael Chapp comments: “As the healthcare landscape continues to evolve with the development of new technologies, encryption, and digital identity will become pivotal to enabling data privacy across industries for a frictionless security experience. Continuous health data collected through wearable technology is the key to enabling personalized, precision care that will usher in a new era for the healthcare industry. ŌURA is a mission-driven company and a bold innovator, and we’re excited about the opportunities this acquisition will help to unlock.”
Denis Mars, Co-founder and CEO of Proxy, shares: “We’ve always had a vision for software that gives users sovereignty over their digital assets and identity,” said We’ve been hustling in stealth mode developing a wearable with cutting-edge biometric authentication and security technology for a ‘wave to pay’ future. By joining ŌURA, the smart ring leader, we can change the game.”
Last summer ŌURA made its first big move in the women’s health space and announced a partnership with birth control and fertility app Natural Cycles. The Natural Cycles (NC°) app works by analyzing body temperature and other key fertility indicators to determine daily fertility status to help plan or prevent pregnancy naturally. The partnership with ŌURA allows the NC° app to automatically sync temperature trend data from the Oura Ring, eliminating the need to wake up each morning to take your temperature with an oral thermometer.
