According to Woofun AI, the initial public offering (IPO) of wearable device company Oura has encountered market frenzy, with order volume reaching four times the number of shares available for sale. The pricing work conducted on Tuesday approached the upper limit of the preset range due to strong demand, a phenomenon that appears particularly striking against the backdrop of scarce multi-billion-dollar listing projects in recent times, prompting deep scrutiny of the authenticity of the driving factors.
The offering is led by a underwriting syndicate of five banks including Goldman Sachs (GS.US) and Morgan Stanley (MS.US), involving 50 million shares with a pricing range of $40 to $44. If calculated at the upper limit, Oura's market value would reach $14.1 billion; Bloomberg estimates its fully diluted market value to exceed $15 billion, while the company itself targets a valuation of $15.62 billion, aiming to pave the way for an autumn listing (details at https://t.co/BErPj3ZV4W).
It is worth noting that the overall listing environment in 2026 is sluggish, with Kraken's parent company postponing its listing to 2027, and Holtec Nuclear and Bamboo Insurance Services also abandoning their plans due to poor market conditions. Following Jersey Mike's in July, Oura is expected to become another company with a financing scale exceeding $1 billion. Former New York Federal Reserve President Bill Dudley warned that the stock market has already shown signs of a bubble, and this supply-demand imbalance actually benefits companies with well-executed publicity. Data compiled by Woofun AI shows that the current high valuation more reflects the supply-demand mismatch caused by a lack of market liquidity, rather than investors' absolute confidence in fundamentals.
Delving into the financial fundamentals, Oura's revenue grew 74% to $1.21 billion within 9 months, paid members doubled to 5 million, and net income jumped from $1.6 million to $60.8 million. However, the company still recorded a loss attributable to common shareholders of $924.3 million, which mainly stems from preferred stock repurchases rather than core operations. The total value of this IPO could reach as high as $2.2 billion, but there is a significant dilution effect structurally: 73% are secondary shares sold by existing shareholders, and only 27% are new shares from the company. This means that the fundraising scale cannot be directly equated with new capital for the company or real value growth, and investors need to be wary of the long-term impact of equity dilution.
The revenue structure further reveals the core of the valuation controversy: wristband hardware sales contributed $974 million, while subscription services only amounted to $240.5 million. This hardware-dominated revenue model is closer to a traditional manufacturer, yet it enjoys the valuation premium of a software company. Competitor Whoop previously completed $575 million in financing at a valuation of $10.1 billion, and similarly faces similar doubts. Four times oversubscription can guide underwriters in allocating orders, but it cannot predict post-listing performance. Ultimately, consumers will vote with their real money to decide whether the wristband subscription service is worth its high data premium, and this is the only standard for testing its true value.