Oura CEO Tom Hale wears an Oura smart ring. This year has proven to be a decent one for venture capital exits 鈥?but only through the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) channel.

Take Monday's news as an example: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced the acquisition of World Labs, founded by Fei-Fei Li. The all-stock deal, valued at $8.2 billion, acquires the AI startup that was founded just two years ago, further lengthening this year's list of large AI acquisitions. Similar deals include SpaceX acquiring Cursor, Nvidia acquiring Hugging Face, and Stripe's planned acquisition of OpenRouter. The deal also delivered a windfall for Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the largest shareholder of World Labs with nearly a 14% stake.

In stark contrast, however, the IPO wave that the market had been expecting now faces a significant risk of drying up. On Tuesday, health wearable device maker Oura announced it was postponing its IPO, which had been scheduled for later this week, citing "market uncertainty."

Signals of market uncertainty are indeed everywhere: the Federal Reserve has just raised interest rates to combat inflation; mortgage rates have surpassed 7%; and average gasoline prices in states like California have surged above $6 per gallon. There are also internal factors within Silicon Valley itself. A lawyer serving venture capital firms and startups revealed that leading AI companies continually sounding alarms about AI safety have also intensified market unease.

But investors say Oura's decision to hold off on going public is also closely tied to specific problems with its own IPO plan. According to filing documents, Oura's major investor Forerunner Ventures plans to fully exit in this IPO, selling its entire approximately 9% stake. Sources say the planned sale of more than 28 million shares, valued at approximately $1.2 billion based on the midpoint of the offering price range, has made potential IPO investors wary, viewing the move as a bearish signal. By comparison, when Cerebras went public earlier this year at a $56 billion valuation, no major shareholders sold shares; when SpaceX listed in June, major shareholders such as Valor Equity Partners and DFJ Growth also chose to fully retain their shares.

Forerunner Ventures was a top-tier investment firm in the consumer sector before the AI boom arrived. Several consumer AI companies it previously invested in have lost their luster, causing the fund to suffer losses. The firm completed fundraising for its seventh fund at $500 million in November 2024, and has since invested in voice dictation company Wispr Flow and AI assistant startup Town. It remains unclear why Forerunner Ventures plans to fully cash out when Oura goes public; representatives for the firm did not respond to requests for comment.

The planned large-scale reduction by Forerunner Ventures is not the only risk signal. People familiar with the negotiations said Oura's target valuation is too high for many potential IPO investors. Oura's proposed offering price range is $40鈥?44 per share, with the midpoint implying a valuation of 9 times the company's estimated revenue for the year. That multiple is far higher than that of other niche hardware makers such as Sonos, and is nearly on par with Apple, whose business is highly diversified.

To make matters worse, Wall Street analysts have already begun comparing Oura to action camera maker GoPro, which at one point this year teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

To be fair, Oura does not face imminent pressure to go public: for the nine months ended in June, the company generated $1.2 billion in revenue and $60.8 million in net profit, though it posted a loss in the quarter ending in June. Most of the proceeds from the originally planned IPO would have been used to pay taxes on employee equity incentives. People who have been in contact with Oura's management said postponing the IPO allows Oura to reconsider the scale of share sales by existing shareholders in the offering.

Oura may still complete its listing in the fourth quarter of this year. With the Christmas holiday approaching, favorable consumer sentiment and product sales may help dispel the autumn market gloom.