Ultrahuman Raises $70M From Qualcomm Ventures to Transform Smart Rings Into AI-Powered Computers

Qualcomm backs Ultrahuman in $70M round on bet to turn smart rings into computers

Ultrahuman, an Indian startup best known for making smart rings, has raised $70 million in a new funding round that includes backing from Qualcomm's venture arm, as it looks beyond sleep and health tracking to build a ring that can run software on the device and eventually power everything from AI interactions to games. The round values Bengaluru-based Ultrahuman at $365 million, about three times its $120 million valuation in 2023, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Qualcomm Ventures participated in the financing alongside U.S. diagnostics giant Labcorp, Alpha Wave, Blume Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, and Alteria Capital. The round includes $65 million in primary equity and $5 million in debt, Ultrahuman founder and CEO Mohit Kumar said in an interview. Ultrahuman is also working with Qualcomm on a new ring that will use the U.S. chipmaker's silicon, replacing the Nordic Semiconductor chip it currently uses, Kumar told TechCrunch. The added computing power will allow more software and algorithms to run directly on the ring, reducing its reliance on a phone or the cloud, he said. "All ring devices today are like trackers," Kumar said. "You put on the ring, it measures your heart rate, your movement, your sleep." Ultrahuman's goal, he stated, is to make the ring more like a computer, where programs and algorithms can run on the device itself. This could open the ring to use cases well beyond health and sleep tracking, something Ultrahuman rings are known for. Developers, Kumar said, could eventually write their own programs for the device, while Ultrahuman is exploring ways for the ring to work as a pointer or mouse, a game controller, a car key, and an interface for interacting with AI. "The future of AI is personal, ambient and always on," said Quinn Li, global head of Qualcomm Ventures, adding that Ultrahuman is building a new generation of "personal AI devices." While the Qualcomm-powered ring is planned to come later, Ultrahuman is not waiting for the new hardware to start testing that idea. Kumar told TechCrunch that some of the new capabilities will arrive on the startup's existing Ring Air and Ring Pro (pictured above) through a software update by the end of September, including features that would let the ring work as a game controller and interact with AI applications, as well as the ability to allow third-party developers to build new features. Ultrahuman's idea is to take advantage of the ring's position on a user's finger, Kumar said. Unlike a smartwatch, which he described as more akin to "a phone on the wrist," a ring could act as a precise pointing and interaction device while also carrying physiological context such as a user's heart rate, temperature, and movement. "A game controller never reads your heart rate and your temperature, but this one does," Kumar said. He continued by imagining games that could respond not only to a player's movements but also to signals such as their heart rate and body temperature, making the ring both a controller and a source of physiological context. The business behind the bet Meanwhile, Ultrahuman's existing business is growing even as the startup looks to expand what its rings can do. The startup, Kumar said, is currently at an annual revenue run rate of $140 million, up roughly 45% from a year earlier, and expects that run rate to reach $200 million by January 2027. It has sold around 800,000 rings to date, up from about 700,000 in February, Kumar mentioned. About 12% of its users also pay for PowerPlugs, Ultrahuman's subscription-based software features. Co-founded by Kumar and Vatsal Singhal in 2019, Ultrahuman initially debuted with its continuous glucose monitors to help people track their metabolic health. The startup, however, later moved into smart rings, which have since become the mainstay of its business. It also introduced blood testing and environmental sensing to build a broader health platform. The U.S. remains Ultrahuman's largest market, though the startup had to stop selling its Ring Air here for much of the past year following a patent dispute with rival Oura. Ultrahuman returned to the market with its redesigned Ring Pro this year. Demand for the new device, Kumar said, is currently running at 18 to 20 times the startup's available supply in the U.S. Kumar told TechCrunch that the startup expects to return to its previous U.S. sales volumes as soon as next quarter and aims to triple those volumes over the following four quarters as it ramps up supply. The U.S. has accounted for about 45% of Ultrahuman's revenue this quarter, while India contributes about 11%, Kumar said. Ultrahuman plans to use some of the new capital to deepen its presence in markets including India and the UAE, where it has found that physical stores and other offline touchpoints can help drive sales. However, that expansion, along with spending on clinical research and product development, has come at a cost. Ultrahuman, Kumar said, may not be profitable this year after investing more heavily in physical locations, its brand, and clinical studies. Unlike rival Oura, which is reportedly eyeing a September IPO, a public listing is still some way off for Ultrahuman. Kumar told TechCrunch that the startup wants to demonstrate about eight quarters of profitability before going public, a track record he expects could take eight to 10 quarters to establish. However, he sees 2028 as the earliest window for an IPO. In the meantime, Ultrahuman is also looking to work more closely with Labcorp, as it tries to push its rings deeper into health and diagnostics. The companies, Kumar said, are exploring whether the blood-flow signals captured by the ring, when paired with blood-test data, could help identify health risks in areas including cardiovascular health, fertility, and aging. "By combining longitudinal wearable data with deeper biological signals, Ultrahuman is creating new opportunities in personalized health," said Megann Vaughn Watters, vice president and head of Labcorp Venture Fund and Strategic Alliances. The partnership could eventually lead to integrations with Ultrahuman's products, Kumar said, though he declined to share details, adding that the startup expects to have more to announce soon.

Ultrahuman Eyes Gesture Control For Future Rings With Qualcomm Boost - CNET

Katie is a UK-based news reporter and features writer.... Read full bio Smart ring company Ultrahuman is up there with Samsung as among the biggest rivals to Oura, but it has some lofty ambitions for its next steps, which it hinted at on Thursday at IFA. The company announced it had raised $70 million from Qualcomm Ventures, Labcorp, Alpha Wave, Blume and others to develop next-generation AI wearables. The smart ring market is currently dominated by Oura, but Ultrahuman is finding ways to set itself apart. It's already rapidly evolved over the past few years into a health company offering a range of complementary products and services, including blood testing and an ambient sleep monitor that sits by your bed. Earlier this year, it launched the Ring Pro, which has better battery life than its predecessors and also doesn't require a subscription, unlike some of its rivals. The new funding is set to boost this growth further, putting the Ultrahuman Ring at the center of an ecosystem where the data about your body is used for more insightful and actionable purposes. Ultrahuman plans to invest the money in sensing, materials, electrical engineering, algorithms, physiology and clinical science to build future rings and ultimately make the human body more understandable with AI. The partnership with Qualcomm draws Ultrahuman into a much wider ecosystem of AI products, many of which are also wearable, with which the Ultrahuman Ring could become interoperable. One example is the Meta Glasses, which the Ultrahuman Ring could be linked to for purposes of gesture control, said Bhuvan Srinivasan, the company's chief business officer in an interview. "What we're really thinking is you could have a ring that helps you control what's happening in the glasses, but then at the same time at night it measures all your sleep and all your health," he said. "So it's valuable to you both in the day and the night." This won't be possible with the Ring Pro, he added. "There'll be another Ring level that we are working on with them." The partnership with diagnostic and drugs company Labcorp is also important to bringing Ultrahuman's vision to life, due to the support it can provide to Ultrahuman's Blood Vision preventative blood testing service that it's been building out for the past two years, said Srinivasan. "The idea behind Blood Vision is really to bring together all the things you cannot measure on a wearable, but you can measure in your blood, which is also very valuable," he said. "And now we really want to roll that out and make preventive health blood testing much more mainstream. And that's really why we tied up with them over time." The funding could help Ultrahuman position itself as a bridge between people's health, AI agents and other AI-equipped devices. "Ultrahuman is pioneering a new generation of personal AI devices that make personalized insights effortless," said Quinn Li, senior vice president of Qualcomm Technologies and global head of Qualcomm Ventures. "We look forward to supporting their journey as they expand the possibilities of personal AI devices." Editors' note: Katie Collins' travel costs for the IFA conference were covered in part by Xiaomi. The judgments and opinions of CNET are our own.