Wearable Tech: what are the top startups?

Which wearable tech startups are already operating like real scaled companies?

Oura, Whoop, and Ultrahuman are the three wearable tech startups that stand out most clearly when we look at actual company scale.

Oura is still the strongest company in the category. Its October 2025 raise of more than $900 million at about an $11 billion valuation was not just a “big VC round” signal. It actually came with hard operating proof: more than 5.5 million rings sold, more than half of those sales happening in the prior year, over $500 million in 2024 revenue, and a stated target of more than $1 billion in 2025 sales. That means Oura is now being valued more like a consumer health platform than a gadget company.

Whoop is the closest scaled rival, but it wins on a different axis. Oura has the stronger hardware category pull; Whoop has the cleaner subscription-athlete model. In March 2026, Whoop raised $575 million at a $10.1 billion valuation, said it had more than 2.5 million members, and reported around a $1.1 billion bookings and subscription run-rate after growing 103% year over year. The important comparison is simple: Oura looks broader and more mainstream; Whoop looks more focused and subscription-native.

Ultrahuman is not in the same size class yet, but it deserves to be in the conversation because its recent numbers show something many hardware startups never prove: profitable growth. In FY25, it reported about ₹565 crore in operating revenue, roughly $64 million, up 5.4x year over year, and about ₹73 crore in net profit. Its smart-ring revenue reportedly grew 9.5x and contributed more than 90% of operating revenue. Compared with Oura and Whoop, Ultrahuman is smaller. Compared with most emerging wearables, it looks unusually disciplined.

If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest wearable technology market report.

Which smart-ring startups are actually challenging Oura?

Oura still dominates smart rings, but Ultrahuman and RingConn are the two challengers worth taking seriously right now.

Oura is the category leader because it has the best combination of brand, clinical partnerships, distribution, and paid-member scale. Most smart-ring startups can copy the form factor. Very few can copy Oura’s data advantage after millions of rings sold and years of longitudinal sleep, readiness, and health-tracking behavior. That installed base is the real moat.

Ultrahuman is the more credible challenger because it has a broader health-stack strategy around the Ring Air, glucose tracking, blood testing, and metabolic insights. More importantly, its FY25 profitability changes the comparison. Oura is much bigger, but Ultrahuman is proving that smart rings can be sold as part of a leaner, more integrated health platform.

RingConn is a different kind of challenger. It is winning on price logic and subscription resistance, not just on brand prestige. Its Gen 2 campaign crossed several million dollars in sales and more than 18,000 backers, and the company claimed more than 150,000 users across 80 countries by late 2024. Against Oura, the pitch is obvious: a ring with no monthly subscription. That will not beat Oura at the premium end, but it can pull in buyers who dislike paying forever for health metrics.

The smart-ring market is therefore not “Oura versus everyone” but rather Oura as the premium default, Ultrahuman as the serious health-platform challenger, and RingConn as the value wedge.

Which wearable health startups are doing more than wellness claims?

Biolinq, Aktiia/Hilo, Biobeat, VitalConnect, and BioIntelliSense are the wearable health startups that stand out because they are closer to regulated medical sensing than lifestyle tracking.

Biolinq is the freshest breakout here. In April 2025, it raised $100 million to advance its intradermal glucose biosensor. Then in September 2025, Biolinq Shine received FDA De Novo classification for adults with Type 2 diabetes who do not use insulin. Compared with app-led metabolic startups, Biolinq is doing the harder thing: trying to change the sensor layer itself. That gives it more technical risk, but also more upside if the product expands glucose monitoring beyond today’s CGM user base.

Aktiia, now also operating under Hilo, is the clearest blood-pressure signal. In July 2025, the FDA cleared its cuffless G0 Blood Pressure Monitoring System as an over-the-counter device. That is a big deal because cuffless blood pressure has been one of the most overpromised wearable categories for years. Compared with smartwatch-style wellness estimates, Aktiia’s advantage is regulatory proof around a specific clinical problem.

Biobeat is less consumer-famous, but its positioning is stronger in clinical blood pressure. In December 2025, it raised $50 million to expand U.S. commercialization of its FDA-cleared patch-worn, cuffless 24-hour ambulatory blood-pressure monitor. Compared with Aktiia, Biobeat feels more clinical and less consumer-facing. That may make it less visible, but it also gives it a clearer reimbursement and provider workflow angle.

VitalConnect and BioIntelliSense are more mature remote-monitoring names. VitalConnect raised $100 million in February 2025 through equity and debt financing to expand its biosensor patch business. BioIntelliSense had already received FDA clearance for BioButton and BioDashboard continuous monitoring.

These companies are not the hottest consumer names today, but in hospitals and home care, boring reliability often matters more than newness.

Which metabolic wearable startups are winning the glucose and metabolism race?

Signos, Biolinq, Levels, and Ultrahuman are the metabolic wearable startups to watch, but Signos and Biolinq have the freshest momentum right now.

Signos has the strongest 2026 commercial signal. In May 2026, it raised $20 million from GV, Dexcom, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, and it announced a partnership that puts Signos into Dexcom’s Stelo direct-to-consumer channel. The round size is not massive. The strategic distribution is the point. Compared with metabolic apps that still need to find users one by one, Signos gets to sit closer to the CGM company that already owns trust in the category.

Biolinq is more ambitious because it is not just building coaching around existing sensors. It is trying to make the glucose sensor itself more wearable and less invasive. That puts Biolinq in a higher-risk lane than Signos, but also a more defensible one if the technology scales. Signos can move faster commercially; Biolinq could own a deeper layer of the stack.

Levels remains one of the best-known metabolic-health software brands. Its problem is that the freshest public signals are less sharp than Signos or Biolinq. Levels helped educate the market around CGM for non-diabetic metabolic health, but right now it looks more like a category pioneer than the startup with the hottest current proof.

Ultrahuman fits because it is trying to connect ring data, glucose, and blood markers into one health picture. Compared with Signos, it is broader. Compared with Biolinq, it is less sensor-deep. Its edge is that the ring gives it a daily wearable touchpoint that pure CGM apps do not have.

All things considered, Signos is the current commercial mover, Biolinq is the sensor-layer bet, Levels is the brand pioneer, and Ultrahuman is the broader health-stack challenger. That is a much more useful ranking than just saying they all have “traction.”

If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest wearable technology market report.

Which smart-glasses startups are closest to becoming real consumer platforms?

Xreal and Viture are the two smart-glasses startups with the strongest commercial momentum, while XPANCEO, Even Realities, and Brilliant Labs are the names to watch for the next form-factor shift.

Xreal is still the biggest independent smart-glasses player. In January 2026, it reportedly raised $100 million and crossed a valuation above $1 billion. It also moved deeper into Android XR with Google and showed Project Aura at Google I/O 2026. Compared with smaller AI-glasses startups, Xreal has a better chance of becoming part of the platform layer because it is already aligning with Google’s XR ecosystem.

Viture is the sharper U.S. challenger. It raised more than $200 million across late 2025 and early 2026, including a $100 million round in February 2026. The most interesting comparison is market share: coverage citing IDC data said Viture was outperforming Xreal in the U.S., even though Xreal remained the larger global seller. That makes Viture one of the few startups in the category with a real “we are beating the leader somewhere important” signal.

XPANCEO should not be judged like Xreal or Viture. It is not trying to sell display glasses today but trying to leapfrog glasses with smart contact lenses. Its July 2025 $250 million Series A at a $1.35 billion valuation is enormous for such an early form factor. The right interpretation is not “XPANCEO is winning the market now” but that investors are willing to fund a very long, very technical bet because the prize could be the post-glasses interface.

Even Realities and Brilliant Labs are smaller but worth tracking because they are pushing toward daily AI utility. Even Realities’ G2 glasses add translation, notifications, navigation, live transcription, and a smart-ring controller. Brilliant Labs’ Halo glasses push a low-cost AI-assistant model with a small display, audio, and memory features. Compared with Xreal and Viture, these companies are not winning on display scale. They are trying to answer a more practical question: what would make someone wear smart glasses every day?

So it looks like the smart-glasses market has two tracks today. Xreal and Viture are the commercial display leaders. XPANCEO, Even Realities, and Brilliant Labs are trying to define what comes after “screen on your face”.

Which AI wearable startups proved that Big Tech actually cares?

Bee and Limitless are the clearest AI wearable signals because Amazon and Meta bought them in 2025.

Bee was acquired by Amazon in July 2025. Its bracelet was a roughly $50 always-on AI device that recorded conversations, summarized daily life, created reminders, and connected to user data with permission. We cannot use the acquisition as a financial ranking because the terms were not disclosed.

But strategically, it matters: Amazon did not need another cheap bracelet. It wanted the always-on AI memory concept and the team behind it.

Limitless was acquired by Meta in December 2025. Its $99 pendant recorded conversations and turned them into searchable notes and summaries. The product itself stopped being sold after the acquisition, so this is not proof that consumers were buying AI pendants at massive scale. It is proof that Meta saw enough value in the direction to move.

The comparison with Humane and Rabbit is important. Those companies showed how hard standalone AI hardware can be when the product is expensive, trust is weak, or the use case is unclear. Bee and Limitless point to a different path: lower-cost, narrow AI memory devices that Big Tech can absorb into larger assistant ecosystems.

If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest wearable technology market report.

Which wearable sleep and brain-tech startups are more than lab demos?

Elemind and Neurable are the two emerging wearable neurotech startups with the most interesting recent evidence, while Oura remains the scaled sleep-tracking reference point.

Elemind is the sleep-specific name to watch. Its headband reads EEG brainwaves and uses personalized acoustic stimulation to help users fall asleep. The company reportedly generated $3.1 million in top-line sales after launch and grew 20% month over month in Q4 2025. Those are still early numbers, but they matter because neurotech often gets stuck in research language. Elemind has at least started to prove that people will pay for a brain-sensing sleep product.

Neurable is stronger on funding and broader brain-computer-interface ambition. In December 2025, it raised $35 million in Series A funding to deploy everyday BCI technology, including EEG-enabled headphones. Compared with Elemind, Neurable is less narrowly about sleep and more about cognitive-state tracking. That makes the market bigger, but also harder to explain to consumers.

Oura belongs in the comparison because it already owns sleep behavior at scale. The difference is that Oura infers sleep through biometric signals from the finger, while Elemind and Neurable are trying to work closer to the brain signal itself. Today, Oura is the better company. Lately, Elemind and Neurable are the more interesting technology bets.

Finally, the brain-wearable category is still early enough that we should avoid pretending there is a broad pack of obvious leaders. Muse is established, and other neurotech startups exist, but the freshest recent signals point mainly to Elemind and Neurable.

Which fertility and women’s-health wearables are actually useful, not just pink hardware?

Natural Cycles and Oura are the strongest wearable-tech pair in fertility right now, while Movano’s Evie Ring remains technically interesting but commercially unproven.

Natural Cycles has the clearest use case because it is connecting wearable data to a regulated birth-control app. In January 2026, it launched a $129.99 wristband that tracks skin temperature, heart rate, and movement during sleep, replacing manual thermometer readings for users of its FDA-cleared app. That makes the wearable useful because it removes friction from an existing behavior.

Oura is powerful here because it gives Natural Cycles a much bigger wearable data layer. Oura users can already sync overnight temperature trends into the Natural Cycles app. Compared with Natural Cycles’ own wristband, Oura has the scale advantage. Compared with Oura, Natural Cycles has the sharper regulated fertility use case. Together, they make one of the cleaner examples of wearable data becoming decision support rather than just a pretty graph.

Movano’s Evie Ring is the cautionary comparison. The product was designed around women’s health, and its EvieMED ring received FDA clearance for pulse oximetry in late 2024. But by Q1 2025, reported revenue had fallen 76% year over year to about $0.2 million, and the company was dealing with liquidity and listing-pressure issues.

That is exactly why we cannot rank startups only by product story. In this category, Movano has interesting technology, but the business signal is weak.

At the end of the day, Natural Cycles is the fertility-wearable startup with the clearest current use case, Oura is the scaled data partner, and Movano shows how hard it is to turn a differentiated women’s-health wearable into a strong company.

If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest wearable technology market report.

Which industrial wearable startups are solving painful problems today?

Hypershell, German Bionic, Kinetic, HeroWear, and Epicore Biosystems are the industrial and safety wearable startups worth watching.

Hypershell has the hottest recent funding signal. In May 2026, it raised $50 million in a B+ round led by Ant Group and Meituan Dragonball, bringing its B-round funding to about $120 million in less than a year. Compared with traditional industrial exoskeleton companies, Hypershell is more consumer-adjacent. It wants exoskeletons to move from factories and hospitals into hiking, mountaineering, and outdoor mobility. That makes it riskier, but also potentially much larger.

German Bionic is the more established workplace-exoskeleton company. In May 2025, it launched Exia, an AI-powered exoskeleton built from billions of real-world motion data points across manufacturing, logistics, retail, and healthcare. Compared with Hypershell, German Bionic is less about opening a new consumer category and more about making workers safer and more productive in existing industrial settings.

Kinetic is more practical and less futuristic. It focuses on wearable injury prevention for frontline workers, detecting risky movements and helping employers reduce injuries and claims. That narrower wedge may actually be an advantage. Industrial buyers do not always want a robot suit; sometimes they want a measurable reduction in back injuries.

HeroWear plays in a similar practical lane. In April 2025, it raised $5 million in Series A funding for occupational exosuits that reduce strain during repetitive lifting and bending. Its claimed 20% to 40% strain reduction gives buyers a clear metric to evaluate. Compared with German Bionic, HeroWear looks lighter and more focused; compared with Kinetic, it is more physical-assistive than data-monitoring.

Epicore Biosystems is the standout sweat-sensing safety wearable. Its hydration and heat-stress monitoring products are used in energy, construction, manufacturing, aviation, shipping, and military contexts. Its 2025 Series B, later expanded to $32 million, supports global adoption and new biomarker targets. Compared with exoskeleton players, Epicore is not augmenting strength. It is helping companies avoid heat and hydration failures before they become incidents.

Which wearable tech moonshots could change the whole form factor?

XPANCEO, Biolinq, Neurable, Hypershell, and Brilliant Labs are the wearable tech moonshots that could matter most if their bets work.

XPANCEO is the boldest form-factor bet because smart contact lenses would make smart glasses feel like an intermediate step. Its $250 million Series A at a $1.35 billion valuation in July 2025 is one of the largest recent signals in the entire wearable market. The technology risk is huge, but the ambition is equally clear: display, sensing, power, and AI in a contact lens.

Biolinq is a more grounded moonshot. As pointed out above, it already has an FDA De Novo milestone for Biolinq Shine. The bigger question is whether its intradermal biosensor platform can move beyond glucose and become a broader body-chemistry layer. Compared with XPANCEO, Biolinq is less futuristic visually, but it may be closer to real medical adoption.

Neurable is trying to make brain data part of everyday headphones. That is not as dramatic as a contact lens, but it may be easier to adopt because people already wear headphones for hours. The hard part is turning EEG signals into consumer features that feel useful daily, not just impressive in demos.

Hypershell is a moonshot because it tries to make exoskeletons normal for outdoor mobility. Most wearable robotics companies start with workplaces or rehabilitation. Hypershell is asking whether ordinary people will wear powered assistance for hiking and movement. That question is still open, but the May 2026 funding suggests serious investors believe the category can stretch.

Brilliant Labs is the low-cost AI-glasses bet. At $299, Halo is not trying to win through cinematic immersion. It is trying to make a small display, AI memory, audio, and visual context cheap enough to test daily behavior. Compared with Xreal or Viture, Brilliant Labs looks less like an XR company and more like an AI-interface experiment.

Put everything together and the moonshot list is not the same as the leader list. Oura and Whoop are the strongest wearable companies today. XPANCEO, Biolinq, Neurable, Hypershell, and Brilliant Labs are the startups most likely to stretch the definition of wearable tech.

If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest wearable technology market report.

So, who are the top wearable tech startups right now?

The top wearable tech startups right now are Oura, Whoop, Ultrahuman, Biolinq, Signos, Aktiia/Hilo, Xreal, Viture, XPANCEO, Neurable, Elemind, Natural Cycles, Hypershell, German Bionic, and Epicore Biosystems.

Oura and Whoop sit in the top tier because they are already operating like large consumer health platforms. They have the clearest mix of valuation, revenue scale, users, subscription economics, and brand pull. If someone asks for the two most important wearable tech startups today, those are the two.

Ultrahuman is the most credible emerging consumer-health challenger because its recent growth came with profitability. That gives it a different quality of signal than a startup that only has a large funding round.

Biolinq and Aktiia/Hilo stand out because wearable health is moving toward regulated sensing. Biolinq has the stronger glucose-sensor moonshot. Aktiia/Hilo has the cleaner cuffless blood-pressure clearance. Signos is the metabolic startup with the strongest 2026 distribution signal because of its Dexcom link.

Xreal and Viture are the smart-glasses companies closest to current commercial relevance. XPANCEO is the deeper form-factor bet. Brilliant Labs and Even Realities are smaller, but they matter because they are pushing smart glasses toward daily AI utility instead of pure display.

Neurable and Elemind are the brain and sleep-tech startups with the freshest evidence. Natural Cycles is the clearest fertility-wearable use case. Hypershell, German Bionic, Kinetic, HeroWear, and Epicore show that industrial wearables are quietly becoming one of the most practical parts of the market.

So we can conclude that wearable tech is not being led by one type of device anymore.

The strongest startups are clustering around five directions: preventive health, regulated biosensing, AI memory, visual interfaces, and body augmentation. The companies that appear across several of those directions, or own a very hard measurement layer inside one of them, are the ones that look most important now.

Category	Startups selected and why
Scaled wearable tech companies	Oura and Whoop are the clear leaders on scale. Ultrahuman is smaller but stands out because it has disclosed profitable hypergrowth.
Smart rings	Oura remains the premium default. Ultrahuman is the health-platform challenger. RingConn is the subscription-free value wedge.
Regulated wearable health sensing	Biolinq and Aktiia/Hilo have the freshest FDA-backed signals. Biobeat, VitalConnect, and BioIntelliSense are stronger clinical infrastructure names.
Metabolic wearables	Signos has the strongest 2026 distribution signal through Dexcom. Biolinq is the sensor-layer bet. Levels is the category pioneer. Ultrahuman is the broader health-stack challenger.
Smart glasses	Xreal leads globally and is aligned with Android XR. Viture is the sharp U.S. challenger. XPANCEO is the best-funded form-factor moonshot. Even Realities and Brilliant Labs are the daily-AI glasses bets.
AI wearable assistants	Bee and Limitless matter because Amazon and Meta acquired them in 2025. The category is strategically hot but not yet proven as a standalone startup market.
Sleep and brain wearables	Elemind has the clearest sleep-neurotech sales signal. Neurable has the strongest recent BCI-wearable funding signal. Oura remains the scaled sleep-tracking reference.
Fertility and women’s-health wearables	Natural Cycles has the clearest regulated fertility use case. Oura is the scaled data partner. Movano has interesting FDA-cleared technology but weak business momentum.
Industrial and safety wearables	Hypershell has the hottest recent exoskeleton funding. German Bionic leads workplace exoskeletons. Kinetic, HeroWear, and Epicore solve more specific injury, strain, hydration, and heat-risk problems.
Moonshot wearable form factors	XPANCEO, Biolinq, Neurable, Hypershell, and Brilliant Labs could change what “wearable” means, even if not all of them are commercial leaders today.

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