Oura Health's $875M Series E Marks Wearables Watershed Moment
Smart ring pioneer Oura Health is finalizing an extraordinary $875 million Series E funding round that could push its valuation to $11 billion, marking one of the largest wearables funding rounds in history. The Finnish-American company, which has sold over 2.5 million rings globally, is seeing unprecedented demand from institutional investors eager to capitalize on the booming health wearables market.
The financing, which could exceed $900 million by month's end, represents a stunning validation of the smart ring category that Oura essentially created. The company's latest Gen3 ring tracks over 20 biometric signals including heart rate variability, body temperature, and sleep patterns, positioning it as a medical-grade device in a consumer-friendly form factor.
Key Metrics
Engineering Breakthrough: Netflix's Cloud Live Streaming Revolution
Netflix Engineering unveiled their new cloud-based live streaming pipeline in a detailed technical blog post this week, showcasing how they've solved one of streaming's hardest challenges: delivering live content at massive scale with broadcast-quality reliability.
The new architecture, detailed by engineers Allison Deal, Cyril Concolato, and team, enables Netflix to stream live events to 280+ million subscribers globally with sub-3-second latency. The system leverages adaptive bitrate encoding, multi-CDN orchestration, and intelligent failover mechanisms to maintain 99.99% uptime even during peak events.
Technical Highlights
- Redundant encoding pipelines with automatic regional failover
- Real-time quality monitoring across 190+ countries
- Multi-CDN orchestration for optimal delivery paths
Major Funding Rounds
AppZen Secures $180M to Revolutionize Enterprise Finance with AI
AI-powered finance automation platform AppZen announced a $180 million Series D round led exclusively by Riverwood Capital, bringing its total funding to $290 million. With marquee customers including Amazon, Salesforce, and JPMorgan Chase, AppZen's technology automates expense auditing and accounts payable workflows, reducing manual review time by 90%.
Until Labs Raises $58M to "Pause Biological Time"
Biotech startup Until Labs secured $58 million in Series A funding led by Founders Fund, with participation from Lux Capital and Field Ventures. The San Francisco company is developing groundbreaking cryopreservation technology to dramatically extend organ viability for transplants.
AI Infrastructure & Platform Updates
Oracle's $330 Billion AI Infrastructure Bet Reshapes Cloud Landscape
Oracle's massive infrastructure deals totaling $330 billion are transforming the AI compute landscape. After securing a $30 billion deal with OpenAI in June, Oracle announced an additional $300 billion compute contract set to begin in 2027, briefly making Larry Ellison the world's richest person as the stock soared.
OpenAI Upgrades Codex with GPT-5 Power
OpenAI rolled out significant upgrades to Codex, its AI coding assistant, powered by a customized version of GPT-5. Available now to all ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, Edu, and Enterprise users, the upgraded Codex demonstrates 40% faster development cycles for complex projects.
YouTube Unveils AI-Powered Creator Revolution
At the "Made on YouTube" event on September 18, YouTube announced "Dream Screen" for AI-generated backgrounds, "Creator Music" for licensed tracks with revenue-sharing, AI dubbing that preserves creator voice tone, and extended Shorts duration up to 3 minutes. With Shorts now generating 70 billion daily views, these tools position YouTube to dominate short-form content.
Global Tech Developments
Meta Commits $600 Billion to US Infrastructure Through 2028
Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta's plan to invest $600 billion in US infrastructure by 2028, focusing on AI compute capacity and massive data centers.
All Things People Raises Seed Round for HR Tech Innovation
Indian HR technology startup All Things People secured Rs 7 crore ($700,000) in seed funding to develop its first product "atp|reflect".
