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HOME/PITCHBOOK NEWS/Oura's $1B+ pre-IPO buybacks
NEWS
// NEWSLETTER ISSUE
PITCHBOOK NEWS

Oura's $1B+ pre-IPO buybacks

DATE September 4, 2026SOURCE PITCHBOOK NEWSPARTICIPANTS PITCHBOOK NEWS
AI InfrastructureVenture CapitalCapital EfficiencyIPO & Public MarketsGrowth & ScalingCompetitive Strategy
In this episode
AnthropicOpenAINvidiaGoogleBlackstoneKKRFigureBroadcomJane StreetCrusoeOuraNscaleSilver LakeTPGTCVFlexUpwindEPC PowerApolloMaverick SiliconRelatedLyte21 NextChurch Commissioners for EnglandEquinoxJensen HuangScott NuttallRosie Slater-Carr
// SUMMARY

1. Key Themes

Pre-IPO liquidity events are becoming a major tool for late-stage private companies

Oura's massive buyback signals a trend where hot, high-growth private companies use tender offers/buybacks to reward and de-risk early shareholders well before a public listing, rather than waiting for IPO liquidity.

  • "The Finnish-founded company spent $1.09 billion on stock repurchases during the first nine months of the fiscal year, according to the S-1, acquiring 27.9 million shares from its Seed, Series A, B, C, and C-1 shareholders."
  • "These were partial exits, and the share buybacks account for 17% of its outstanding preferred stock."

AI infrastructure demand is outpacing even semiconductor investment, fueling a "neocloud" compute arms race

Massive multi-billion-dollar compute supply deals are being struck between AI-native companies and infrastructure providers, reflecting a structural shift in where VC and growth capital is flowing.

  • "Nscale inked a deal to supply humanoid robot maker Figure with $3.5 billion in compute; Crusoe has a fresh contract with trading firm Jane Street worth $13 billion."
  • "Massive demand helps explain why VC funding for data centers recently outpaced semiconductor investment, according to our research."

Private markets are bifurcating into AI "haves" and "have-nots" among alternative asset managers

Scale and balance-sheet capital are becoming decisive advantages in the AI era — only the largest GPs can underwrite AI infrastructure deals, and that access is compounding their fundraising and deployment edge.

  • "Private equity is increasingly a tale of two markets. For the largest publicly traded GPs, AI dominated Q2 earnings calls... GPs lacking scale haven't been invited to the party."
  • "'Our industry is increasingly K-shaped,' [KKR's Scott Nuttall] said. 'We find ourselves on the happy part of the K, and that's what's showing up in the numbers.'"
  • "Apollo announced the largest private credit financing on record, a $35 billion deal with Broadcom to build AI infrastructure, with Blackstone as a lead investor."

Growth companies can scale revenue fast while still being barely profitable — and investors are rewarding it anyway

Oura's financial profile — explosive growth, high subscription margins, but thin net income — illustrates a persistent late-stage private market pattern: top-line and unit economics matter more to valuation than bottom-line profitability.

  • "The company's revenue has tripled over the last two years, reaching $1.21 billion in the first nine months of the 2026 fiscal year."
  • "But despite the rosy picture, Oura is only recently and barely profitable. For the first three quarters of fiscal 2026, Oura posted $60.8 million of net income against $1.21 billion in revenue."
  • "subscriptions carry an 89% gross margin"

2. Contrarian Perspectives

  • Real assets aren't clearly a differentiated diversifier right now. Despite real assets historically being pitched as a portfolio hedge/diversifier with distinct return drivers, current data shows its performance trend is not meaningfully distinguishable from the broader private capital market.

    • "Median real assets IRRs have edged up in recent vintages, though the gains are not clearly differentiated from broader private capital trends."

  • Massive AI investment doesn't guarantee returns — even to the firms making the biggest bets. While the narrative around AI megadeals is euphoric, PitchBook's own framing injects skepticism about whether this capital deployment will actually pay off.

    • "Whether these latest investments translate into long-term returns is another question entirely."

3. Companies Identified

Oura

  • Description: Finnish-founded maker of smart rings (wearables), currently filing for IPO.
  • Why mentioned: Case study in pre-IPO liquidity events, revenue growth, and subscription economics.
  • Quotes: "Oura publicly filed for an IPO on Thursday, and outside of delivering record shipments of its smart rings, it's also been delivering something else for its investors: liquidity." / "Oura doubled its paid users in a year, from 2.5 million to 5 million."

Nscale

  • Description: Neocloud/compute provider.
  • Why mentioned: Example of massive AI compute supply deals driving the data center investment boom.
  • Quote: "Nscale inked a deal to supply humanoid robot maker Figure with $3.5 billion in compute."

Crusoe

  • Description: Neocloud/compute provider.
  • Why mentioned: Signed a $13B contract with Jane Street, illustrating scale of AI infrastructure deals.
  • Quote: "Crusoe has a fresh contract with trading firm Jane Street worth $13 billion, Bloomberg reported."

Apollo / Blackstone / TPG / KKR

  • Description: Publicly traded alternative asset managers (GPs).
  • Why mentioned: Exemplify the "K-shaped" bifurcation in private equity driven by AI-scale deal capacity.
  • Quotes: "Apollo announced the largest private credit financing on record, a $35 billion deal with Broadcom to build AI infrastructure, with Blackstone as a lead investor." / "Blackstone and TPG both touted direct stakes in OpenAI and Anthropic... TPG with OpenAI, and Blackstone with Anthropic." / "Blackstone and Google also announced a joint venture to stand up a TPU cloud."

Upwind

  • Description: Israeli cloud security company.
  • Why mentioned: Notable large VC round ($300M) valuing it at ~$3.8B.
  • Quote: "raised about $300 million led by Bessemer Venture Partners and TCV, valuing it at roughly $3.8 billion with the round."

Lyte

  • Description: Sunnyvale-based developer of perception sensors/software for robots.
  • Why mentioned: $165M Series C at $1.6B valuation, signaling continued robotics investment.
  • Quote: "raised a $165 million Series C led by Maverick Silicon that values the company at $1.6 billion."

Equinox

  • Description: Luxury gym chain.
  • Why mentioned: Case of PE-backed company under severe debt distress needing recapitalization.
  • Quote: "Silver Lake and Related are in advanced talks to inject fresh capital into and refinance Equinox... to help cut a $1.8 billion debt load carrying rates as high as 16%."

EPC Power

  • Description: California maker of power-conversion systems for AI data centers and the grid.
  • Why mentioned: Notable $4.4B exit tied to AI infrastructure buildout, underscoring the AI data center investment theme.
  • Quote: "agreed to be acquired by Nasdaq-listed Flex for about $4.4 billion."

4. People Identified

Scott Nuttall

  • Description: Co-CEO of KKR.
  • Why mentioned: Coined/used the "K-shaped" framing to describe bifurcation in private equity driven by AI-scale investing.
  • Quote: "'Our industry is increasingly K-shaped,' he said. 'We find ourselves on the happy part of the K, and that's what's showing up in the numbers.'"

Rosie Slater-Carr

  • Description: New permanent CEO of the Church Commissioners for England, previously interim CEO and COO since 2020.
  • Why mentioned: Notable leadership appointment overseeing a large endowment fund.
  • Quote: "named Rosie Slater-Carr as permanent chief executive, elevating her from the interim role she'd held since March... oversees its £11.6 billion endowment fund."

Jensen Huang

  • Description: CEO of Nvidia.
  • Why mentioned: Highlighted for his unique celebrity status in Taiwan tied to AI hype ("Jensanity").
  • Quote: "No mogul excites passionate fandom quite like Nvidia boss Jensen Huang when he's home in Taiwan."

5. Operating Insights

  • Use buybacks strategically to manage the cap table and reward early backers before a liquidity event. Oura's pattern of large-scale, staged secondary buybacks (across Seed through Series C-1) shows founders/boards can proactively create liquidity for long-tenured investors, which can help maintain investor goodwill and simplify a future IPO cap table without waiting for a public listing.

  • Subscription/recurring revenue economics can offset hardware-thin margins. Oura's business model — hardware sales driving a high-margin subscription attach — is a reproducible playbook for other hardware/wearable startups seeking durable, profitable growth: "subscriptions carry an 89% gross margin."

  • Scale begets scale in capital-intensive AI deals. The PE bifurcation theme suggests that operators and fund managers without balance-sheet scale should seek partnerships, co-investment, or niche specialization rather than trying to compete head-on with mega-GPs for AI infrastructure deals.

6. Overlooked Insights

  • General Atlantic's move into evergreen retail-access vehicles signals a broader institutional push to tap high-net-worth capital for growth-equity exposure — a structural distribution shift worth watching beyond this single fund. "General Atlantic is marketing a new evergreen fund for high-net-worth investors... aims to deploy about $1.5 billion annually."

  • The Benetton family's launch of "21 Next" with €3 billion in AUM represents a notable new family-office-driven European investment platform entering the market, a potential new source of deal competition/capital in European PE. "Italy's billionaire Benetton family received regulatory approvals to launch a new European investment platform 21 Next, which starts with about €3 billion under management."