The round marks a significant step-up in valuation from the $3.6 billion that Boston-based Whoop achieved in August 2021 when it raised a $200 million Series F round. In total, it has raised over $900 million since it was founded by in 2012.

led its latest financing, which included participation from a slew of institutional investors, athletes and angels, including , , , and .

Individual investors in the round include soccer star , players and , and musician .

Whoop says it is powered by more than 24 billion hours of physiological data and purpose-built AI models to provide predictive, personalized health insights. It claims to help users understand how they slept, whether they have recovered, how hard to push or pull back, and how daily behaviors like training, nutrition and stress are impacting their performance and long-term health. It further ambitiously claims that it helps users 鈥渋dentify early warning signs, reduce risk, and take action that can prevent serious health events.鈥�

Subscription-based insights

Its model is different from that of many wearables companies. The actual wearable doesn鈥檛 cost anything, but 鈥渕embers鈥� pay a subscription to access the insights it offers. There are different tiers based on style and performance level.

Whoop has historically been more popular among athletes and die-hard workout enthusiasts, although it appears to be becoming more mainstream. The company says it now has over 2.5 million members globally, and that in 2025 bookings grew 103% year over year. It听 operated cash flow positive and ended the year at a $1.1 billion run rate.

The company is actively hiring for over 600 roles as it plans to double down on R&D and global expansion across Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia.

Whoop鈥檚 round is a bright spot in a sector that hit a cyclical low last year after peaking about four years ago. Just over $5 billion in global venture funding went to fitness and wellness-related startups in 2025, 附近上门 data shows.

That said, it鈥檚 not as if investors have abandoned the space, and there are clearly still companies securing big rounds.

Last year, the standout was , maker of a smart ring that collects data on dozens of personal health and wellness metrics. Last October, the 12-year-old Finnish company it had closed on more than $900 million in funding at an impressive $11 billion valuation.

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That鈥檚 a high bar, which helps explain why wearables have long been a fairly niche area for startup investment. Per 附近上门 data, the category reliably attracts less than 1% of all venture funding in a given year.

This year, however, the space is looking comparatively perky. Largely that鈥檚 due to a single company: , maker of a smart ring that collects data on dozens of personal health and wellness metrics.

Earlier this month, the 12-year-old Finnish company that it closed on more than $900 million in a -led financing at an impressive $11 billion valuation. The raise comes in the wake of sharp growth, with Oura to reach $1 billion in sales this year.

Beyond Oura

But Oura isn鈥檛 the only wearables-related company pulling in significant venture investment recently. Using 附近上门 , we put together a sample list of 18 companies funded in roughly the past year innovating in this area.

Funded startups have a broad array of chosen use cases as well. While medical and health monitoring remains the most prevalent application, we鈥檙e also seeing the AI boom trickling into more consumer-focused offerings outside the health care realm.

Smart lenses, glasses and cow collars

In this arena, one of the largest and most recent rounds went to , a startup developing smart contact lenses that incorporate a microdisplay and external sensors to provide wearers with useful information based on their focus. The 4-year-old, Dubai-based company $250 million this summer at a $1.35 billion valuation.

, a maker of Android smartphones, earbuds and watches, is another wearables developer, albeit not a pure-play in the space, with a big round of late. The startup closed on a $200 million last month to further its vision of an 鈥淎I-native platform in which hardware and software converge into a single intelligent system.鈥� The company cited smart glasses as one of the devices in which it envisions incorporating its operating system.

And while wearables is usually understood to be a category for humans, we did mix it up a bit in our list by including , a maker of a platform that combines smart collars and virtual fencing for ranchers to manage their cattle. It $100 million in Series D funding this summer at a $1 billion valuation.

Health and medical conditions

Wearables for monitoring medical conditions are also still drawing investors鈥� attention with two established names each picking up $100 million financings this year.

San Diego-based , which has developed a wearable biosensor that measures glucose levels continuously just beneath the skin鈥檚 surface, secured its $100 million round in March. A month earlier, , a San Jose, California-based maker of wearable, connected patches for remote monitoring of cardiac health, secured a round of the same size, led by .

We鈥檙e also still seeing some varied startup activity around health-monitoring wearables. An offbeat one that caught our eye was , which develops a wearable that tracks biomarkers in sweat to measure hydration, nutrition, stress and other physiological data.

Deep-pocketed competition

Being in an offbeat niche might provide considerable advantages to a startup. That鈥檚 because wearables startups play in a space that also happens to draw the largest technology companies in the world.

From watches to devices to 鈥檚 , giants with valuations in the trillions are finding appeal in the space. One of Apple鈥檚 newest offerings 鈥� AirPods with 鈥� shows the technological sophistication of wearables is only on the rise.

Even so, we鈥檙e betting startups will continue to find ways to innovate in ways that differentiate them from the tech giants. In particular, they have the advantage of marketing to a small initial early-adopter crowd and tweaking a product until it’s ripe for a much wider audience.

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It鈥檚 one of several startups diving into remote patient monitoring (RPM), a rapidly growing industry that saw favor post-pandemic as the world鈥檚 hospitals were short on beds and clinical practices shuttered their doors.听

Per 附近上门 data, the RPM sector saw a 240% increase in funding between 2020 and 2021. So far in 2022, the area raised more than $220 million in funding, which is larger than any other year besides 2021.听

Not enough labor in health care 听

Remote patient monitoring had long been heralded as a way to help doctors treat patients without seeing them regularly. Using medical devices, physicians could track patient health outside of the clinical setting and intervene early if necessary.听

But for a long time, this class of technology couldn鈥檛 win over doctors and insurers, who were slow to embrace these devices.听

So what鈥檚 fueling the new wave of funding?

鈥淲e’ve hit the wall in terms of human resource shortage. We just don’t have enough humans to take care of other humans on the planet,鈥� said health care consultant , who serves as CEO of , a remote patient monitoring startup with a flagship use-at-home stethoscope.听

鈥淧robably one of the top three problems that hospitals are facing is that they just don’t have enough nurses,鈥� said Smith. 鈥淭hey just don’t have enough people. There just aren’t enough doctors. And so remote monitoring essentially improves efficiency.鈥�

The promise of RPM

The goal of RPM devices was meant to help doctors track their patients between appointments, and develop a better snapshot of how patients fared in their everyday lives outside of the clinic.听

This was especially crucial for patients with chronic conditions with poor disease management, and would allow the doctor to intervene before an upcoming appointment.

鈥淕od forbid something happens in between the first visit and the second visit,鈥� said , principal investor at , who is focused on health care investments.

But early remote patient monitoring devices faced a few key challenges. Comprehensive data tools oversaturated doctors鈥� offices with bits of data collected over the days and weeks of every minute of every patient. This forced clinicians to either sift through a mountain of numbers or ignore it.听

Setting up the technology also proved challenging. Some patients, especially older individuals, ran into troubleshooting issues. This rendered the devices useless and turned workers at doctors鈥� offices into IT help, creating inefficiencies at clinics.听

There was also very little insurance support, which meant a doctor rarely got paid for giving patients an RPM device.

鈥淎 lot of the art of good health care companies is figuring out how to really become part of a doctor’s workflow in a way that really helps them take care of a patient but doesn’t give them a ton of noise,鈥� Effron said.听

Shifting factors

But the tide is turning.听

In 2018, insurance companies created a set of billing codes that allowed doctors to prescribe wearables and bill insurance companies, spurring financial incentive. During the pandemic, to further incentivize using remote patient monitoring technology.听

The technology itself also improved. An increasing number of startups are creating software to pair with medical devices. Leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning, medical device software can predict changes or irregularities and alert the doctor, as opposed to dumping data on their lap.

How they work

General Prognostics, the two-year-old blood tracking startup, received funding from the likes of , president and CEO of , and .听

The startup provides a wearable sensor for people at risk of heart failure. The sensor, along with the app, collects data on key blood biomarkers like NT-proBNP (which is responsible for cardiac-related functions) throughout the day and alerts the doctor of any abnormalities.听

鈥淭hat’s really important for doctors to know because that tends to happen well before the patient becomes symptomatic,鈥� said , CEO and co-founder of General Prognostics. 鈥淎nd that gives the doctor an opportunity to say, okay, let’s adjust your medications because it looks like you’re destabilized. And if [they] can adjust your meds and get you back stable, we can avoid a hospital visit.鈥�

General Prognostics is currently conducting a clinical study and the company鈥檚 AI is trained on data collected from the participating patients.听

The company says it will meet data requirements from the as well as compete with data competitors in the space have collected. By May 2024, the company expects to get clearance from the FDA and start releasing its device to the public.听

Several of these startups also manage the logistical work of using RPM, unburdening doctors when patients run into issues. For example, , which has an at-home kit that monitors patient vitals, sets up its devices in a patient鈥檚 home. Athelas raised $59 million in January, the largest raise in the RPM space so far according to 附近上门 data.听

Preventative care and power of data

In recent years, there has been a push to collect and leverage data in the health care system to help public health officials, hospital systems and physicians create better predictions about patient health.

This data informs better preventative care, which keeps disease and surgery at bay and proves far cheaper than reactive health care

As a result, it can be argued that RPM startups like General Prognostics play a key role in keeping health care costs low.

For instance, while General Prognostics is currently testing an RPM device to monitor heart failure called CardioID, the same platform could help the startup create software that tracks creatinine鈥揳 strong biomarker for kidney failure.听

Those with general heart diseases may also want to monitor potassium. And everyone from doctors to patients want to monitor these levels in a noninvasive way that doesn鈥檛 involve getting blood drawn regularly.听

鈥�The blood is a very good representative of what’s going on in the body. In the ideal world you should just be able to get that data anytime, anywhere,鈥� said , co-founder and advisor at General Prognostics. 鈥淏ut it’s not the case, we don’t live in that world.鈥�

Problems down the road

With multiple startups popping up, all with gadgets and apps and cloud systems, the RPM industry must brace for consolidation.听

This is especially an issue for what is : Baby Boomers, who will soon become the oldest and longest-living generation in recent history.听

Saddling these users with a handful of disparate devices, all of which perform different functions and require troubleshooting, could defeat the purpose of RPM altogether. Without patient adoption, physicians can鈥檛 utilize any new technology that enters the market.

鈥淓very company that makes a device has delusions of grandeur that the world revolves around their gadgets,鈥� Smith said. 鈥淭he result is just a chaotic mess where nothing really works very well. And getting patients to try and do this stuff is just way too complicated.鈥�

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The product – a small strap which attaches to the side of a soccer boot by a silicon strap and contains a gyroscope and accelerometer – works on analyzing player-specific data. It can tell a coach how many touches a player has on a ball, or the total distance travelled during a game (and top speed during that duration).

PlayerMaker said the device could also be used for injury prevention and optimization (for example, a sports club in Israel called Maccabi Tel Aviv uses the wearable to see if players are hitting training session goals). The sports wearables industry has had a sizeable amount of funding: .

PlayerMaker, which launched last year, has gathered up a database of soccer player movements across the world. It pointed to Catapult as a competitor: a chest-mounted sensor that uses GPS, while PlayerMaker is strapped onto the boo

PlayerMaker鈥檚 product has showed up in teams across 10 countries. Clubs include Manchester City, Clb American, Toronto FC, and Argentina鈥檚 Olympic national team, according to a release.

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