Oura Inc.

Global mergers and acquisitions activity slowed sharply in the third quarter from the second, with US deal activity falling by nearly half to $535 billion, according to Mergermarket data. Despite the lull, 2026 remains on pace for a record year in worldwide M&A deals by dollar value, buoyed by megadeals such as SpaceX's $55 billion acquisition of AI coding platform Cursor in June and NextEra Energy's $67 billion merger with Dominion Energy in May. Mergermarket head Lucinda Gutherie said it is natural to have a slowdown as the market digests those transactions, but warned that the reasons not to do a deal have been mounting, citing the Federal Reserve's 25 basis point rate hike, Treasury yields at multidecade highs, calls for a slowdown in the tech industry's artificial intelligence race, and the lengthening toll of the US war in Iran on energy and other prices. UBS analyst Erika Najarian wrote that while some of the investment banking slowdown can be attributed to a long summer, an unhappy bond market implies a deeper freeze in future activity. Deal fee forecasts from Wall Street banks have been mixed, with Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan noting a year-over-year drop of at least 10% in overall investment banking fees, JPMorgan projecting growth in the mid-to-high teens, and Citigroup expecting single-digit growth, while Oppenheimer analyst Chris Kotowski said he remains a believer that M&A activity should accelerate. On Tuesday, smart ring maker Oura postponed its planned initial public offering, joining Holtec Nuclear and Bamboo Insurance in citing market conditions for retreating from planned public debuts.

Anthropic, the owner of the Claude AI model, is considering an initial public offering as early as mid-November, after previously postponing its plans, and still aims to list by the end of this year. Sources say the company could begin the formal share sale process as early as the week of November 9, which would allow shares to begin trading before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on November 26, and the company is scheduled to meet interested investors on October 14 at its headquarters in San Francisco. Some investors estimate Anthropic's fair value at roughly $1.8 trillion to $2 trillion, while the company expects the size of the IPO could match or exceed that of SpaceX's listing. On the financials, Anthropic posted a net loss of nearly $42 billion in 2025, about five times larger than the roughly $8.3 billion loss a year earlier, while full-year revenue surged to about $4.6 billion from just $386 million in 2024. Operating losses, however, widened to more than $8 billion, with most of the 2025 net loss stemming from changes in the fair value of liabilities, which accounted for more than $34 billion of the total loss. The IPO plan comes as the U.S. new-issue market faces pressure, with Oura the latest company to postpone its listing just hours before its offering, after some investors rejected its fully diluted valuation target of about $15 billion. Data compiled by Bloomberg shows that excluding the large IPOs of SpaceX and SK Hynix, more than 100 companies that listed this year delivered an average weighted return of negative 4%, below the S&P 500's 12% gain and the Nasdaq 100's 20% surge over the same period.

Oura announced on Tuesday that it is postponing its previously announced initial public offering on the Nasdaq, citing uncertainty in the IPO market despite strong demand. The postponement comes more than a week after the health-tracking ring maker said it was looking to raise $2.2 billion at the higher end by selling 50 million shares priced between $40 and $44. Renaissance Capital director of investment strategies Avery Marquez attributed the delay to broader macroeconomic volatility, saying the recent spike in yields and resumed rate hikes have put downward pressure on growth companies. Jay Ritter, director of The IPO Initiative at the University of Florida, said the big concern about Oura is valuation, noting that single-product companies such as GoPro and Peloton performed poorly after their IPOs when growth stalled. Founded in Finland, Oura sells its Oura Ring 5 for between $399 and $499, and reported revenue of $1.2 billion in the nine months ending June 30, up from $697 million a year earlier, along with a net loss of $924 million. The delay follows reports that AI developer Anthropic is also delaying its IPO, likely until after the US midterm elections, after Reuters reported on a leaked prospectus showing a $42 billion net loss in 2025 and $518 billion in expected cloud, computing, and infrastructure commitments.

A leaked Anthropic IPO prospectus reported by Reuters shows the AI company lost $41.97 billion last year, according to Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi. The filing, which Anthropic has not commented on, also reportedly warns in its risk factors section that its technology poses an existential risk to humanity, a disclosure Sozzi called unprecedented for a company potentially heading toward a $2 trillion valuation. Yorkville Ives senior managing director Dan Ives said the leak may serve as a trial balloon and that Anthropic going public would be bullish for the broader tech trade by adding transparency, though he acknowledged the safety-versus-growth tug of war. Separately, AMD agreed to acquire World Labs for $8.2 billion, bringing AI pioneer Fei-Fei Lee in as chief scientist reporting to CEO Lisa Su, and AMD crossed the $1 trillion market cap mark for the first time. Sozzi also noted that health tracker Oura pulled its IPO indefinitely, and that Salesforce's Marc Benioff, an early Anthropic investor, could see roughly $10 billion in unrealized gains from his stake if the $2 trillion valuation holds.