Health tracking ring company Oura partners with teletherapy platform Talkspace

Finland-based Oura, maker of its namesake health tracking ring, announced it’s partnering with teletherapy company Talkspace to allow Oura wearers to share their personalized sleep and daily movement data with Talkspace therapists.

Oura ring wearers can utilize the company’s Share Report feature to send information about their sleep quality and movement trends over the period of a week, a month or 90 days. 

“The Share Report provides valuable insight into a member’s sleep patterns, readiness, and activity over a specific period of time. These metrics of sleep and recovery are key pieces of the complex puzzle of overall health,” Dorothy Kilroy, chief commercial officer at Oura, told MobiHealthNews in an email. “By partnering with Talkspace, we can help providers understand the impact sleep has on mental health and vice versa to inform the care they provide and equip users to start an informed dialogue with their providers.” 

In order to share the report and utilize the services formed through the partnership, Oura wearers must also be Talkspace members. 

“What we hear from our members is that therapy helps them navigate so many areas of their lives,” Katelyn Watson, chief marketing officer at Talkspace, told MobiHealthNews in an email. “Our collaboration with Oura gives our members a new way to look holistically at their mental and physical health and in their ongoing conversations with their therapist, which can help expand their toolkit of ways to improve their overall quality of life.” 

THE LARGER TREND

Oura debuted on Kickstarter in August 2015. 

In 2021, it launched its Oura Ring Generation 3, the latest version of its wearable. The ring tracks daytime heart rate and does temperature checks and menstruation predictions. 

The same year, the company scored $100 million in Series C funding and, last year, announced its valuation reached $2.55 billion. A spokesperson told MobiHealthNews Oura raised an “oversubscribed” funding round; however, the company did not release further details.  

Last year, the company announced a partnership with birth control app Natural Cycles, allowing Oura ring wearers to sync body temperature changes collected from the Ring with the Natural Cycles app. 

It also launched Oura for Business in December, allowing employers to obtain anonymous Oura Ring metrics on employees’ sleep, readiness, activity scores and member-focused content. 

In May, Oura announced it acquired digital identification startup Proxy in an all-equity deal. Proxy offers digital identity tech aimed at replacing keys, badges, cards, passwords and apps.

Last year, Talkspace faced a class action lawsuit alleging that a proxy statement provided to investors before its merger in 2021 with special purpose acquisition company Hudson Executive Investment Corp. misrepresented its financial performance and prospects. 

Another class action suit was filed against Talkspace in March of this year, alleging the company misled patients about the number of therapists available for new patients. It also claimed the company enrolls consumers in automatically renewing subscriptions without their consent and fails to supply users with its cancellation policy. 

Talkspace has struggled financially since going public, seeing its stock price fall from a high of $11.95 to today’s price of around $1.57. 

In its second-quarter 2023 earnings report released in July, Talkspace reported revenue of $35.6 million, a 19% increase over the prior year period, driven by an 82% increase in B2B revenue year-over-year and partially offset by a 41% consumer revenue decline.