Two Finnish tech pioneers land major funding

ŌURA’s funding comes from California-based glucose monitoring giant Dexcom. It brings the smart ring company's valuation to over 5 billion US dollars. Alongside the investment, the two companies have formed a partnership to integrate Dexcom glucose data with health, sleep and activity data from Oura Ring. This collaboration aims to find millions of new users interested in metabolic health through joint marketing and cross-selling opportunities.

“Partnering with ŌURA gives us the opportunity to redefine the category again, integrating data from Dexcom glucose biosensors with the continuous insights and metrics measured by Oura Ring,” said Matt Dolan, executive vice president of strategy and corporate development at Dexcom. “This powerful combination will attract new shared customers who want to better understand the link between activity, sleep, nutrition and their glucose.”

ŌURA CEO Tom Hale emphasised the partnership’s potential to meet customer demand by noting that 97 per cent of its customers have expressed interest in understanding how the food they eat impacts their health. 

“This partnership with Dexcom will enable us to empower our members [customers] to make informed decisions and adjust behaviours to positively impact their biometrics and long-term health,” Hale added. “Working together, ŌURA and Dexcom will help members decide what and when to eat by surfacing correlations between activities like sleep and exercise and members' glucose levels.”

Boost for smart surface technology 

TactoTek, founded in 2011, is also celebrating a major milestone with its 57-million-euro funding round, led by the Virala Group. The funding aims to speed up the adoption of the company's in-mould structural electronics (IMSE) solutions globally. IMSE technology integrates electronic functions, such as lighting and touch controls, into 3D injection-moulded structures. This results in lightweight and durable smart surfaces for industries like automotive, aviation and home automation.

“Our investment reflects the market traction of TactoTek’s IMSE technology across multiple industries, including the defence sector, and its secure, highly-protected intellectual property foundation,” said Anders Dahlblom, incoming chairperson of TactoTek and COO of Virala Group. “TactoTek and their IMSE technology are poised for rapid growth.”

TactoTek collaborates with global brands such as Kyocera, Gentex, Polestar and German premium automotive manufacturers. The company boasts over 280 granted patents in 48 patent families and licenses its intellectual property to manufacturers worldwide. 

CEO Jussi Harvela highlights the investment as a significant milestone for the company and a validation of the potential of the company’s technology. 

“IMSE is being used to improve products and concurrently decarbonise manufacturing at scale across multiple industries,” Harvela said. “With this funding, TactoTek will accelerate the adoption of IMSE globally by expanding customer-facing operations and streamlining IMSE solution design by augmenting our software-based delivery system with AI elements and plug-ins for [computer-aided design] CAD and simulation packages.”

The round was joined by several other partners, including Cornes Technologies, Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Company, the European Investment Bank, Finnish Industry Investment, 3M Ventures, Ingman Group, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Conor Venture Partners, Turret and private investors and employees.