Oura agrees to buy AI primary care startup Counsel Health for $625M
The deal brings Counsel's AI-driven care service, already live inside the Oura app, under Oura's own roof.
Oura has agreed to buy Counsel Health, an AI-driven primary care service, for $625 million, a few weeks after it shelved its planned IPO indefinitely. Counsel's chat assistant was already built into the Oura app in June, letting members get tailored guidance and reach licensed doctors without leaving it. The two companies intend to extend that partnership across preventive, urgent and long-term specialty care. Counsel's roughly 70 staff will move over to Oura, and its CEO Muthu Alagappan will serve as Oura's chief clinical AI officer. Counsel will also keep selling its platform to outside health plans, health systems and employers, and the deal is expected to close before the end of 2027.
Why it matters
For Oura members, the change is that AI-guided primary care they already reach from the app now sits inside the company rather than arriving as a third-party integration. Counsel's platform will still be sold to outside health plans, health systems and employers, so the service is not becoming Oura-only. The move also follows Oura's decision to shelve its IPO, and it signals that the company is widening from wearable health tracking into direct care delivery. Whether that expansion works will depend on how the combined service performs once the deal closes.
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