Smart-ring maker Oura's IPO filing this week listed a surprise underwriter: Robinhood Markets.

It is the first official underwriting gig for Robinhood, the retail brokerage of meme-stock fame that has in recent years expanded its business well beyond equity and options trading.

San Francisco-based Oura, best known for its fitness-tracking rings, filed to go public on Thursday, in an offering that is expected to value it at north of $11 billion. Founded in Finland in 2013, Oura is popular among health and longevity enthusiasts and has many fans on Wall Street.

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Allen & Co. and Jefferies are lead bookrunners on the deal, meaning they will command most of the work and the fees.

Robinhood is listed 18th and last. But that is still a victory.

"We intend to be disruptive in this space," Robinhood Chief Executive Vlad Tenev said in June, when the company received regulatory approval to underwrite deals.

Working as an underwriter should give Robinhood more influence over the number of shares ultimately set aside for its customers. In recent years, retail traders have clamored for more access to newly public companies-but the number of shares allocated to brokerages in popular offerings often fall well short of demand. Bankers tend to give priority to institutional investors who are likely to hold on to the stock and can buy swaths.

"We usually think of retail investors as the residual claimant of whatever shares are left," said Jeremy Michels, associate professor at Purdue University's Daniels School of Business. "But with Robinhood getting into this market, it'll be interesting to see if potentially that role changes."

When SpaceX made its stock-market debut earlier this summer, individual investors requested some $100 billion worth of shares. SpaceX gave more than normal to individual investors-about 20%-but it wasn't enough. On listing day, X was littered with gripes from those who received far fewer than they requested.

It is auspicious timing for Robinhood getting in on the game. The market is preparing for another wave of large initial public offerings after the Labor Day holiday in the U.S. that will likely make 2026 the biggest year for offerings in history.

Artificial-intelligence giant Anthropic is expected to go public as soon as next month in what could be the biggest IPO ever, supplanting SpaceX's record $85 billion offering. It could be followed by rival OpenAI. Both deals are likely to attract more retail buzz as a chance to buy the central players in the AI race.

Underwriting Oura's IPO is a win for Robinhood, said Reena Aggarwal, professor of finance at Georgetown University. But its influence could be limited at first.

"At this point, I don't think that bulge-bracket banks are going to feel threatened," Aggarwal said. "There could be a lot of retail investors, but the amount of money involved is still going to be limited."

Robinhood and Oura have made several connections in recent years that helped lead to the IPO job, and Tenev has been seen wearing one of their rings himself.

The ring maker added Robinhood's former finance chief, Jason Warnick, to its board, tapping his experience in helping take Robinhood public.

As part of its push to get users more access to privately held companies, Robinhood launched a closed-end fund in March and invested in Oura. Oura makes up 3.64% of Robinhood Ventures Fund I, which also includes companies such as Databricks and OpenAI.

While Robinhood looks to help sell customers Oura's stock, Oura views Robinhood's individual-investor population as potential customers, a person familiar with the matter said.

The two companies share similarities in their user bases: Oura said 42% of its members are ages 30 to 45, and 31% are under 29. Robinhood customers' median age was 35 last year, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.

When Robinhood rolled out a premium credit card for users this spring, it originally included a complimentary Oura subscription, though the perk was later removed. (It now covers a subscription to rival wearable Whoop.)

In 2021, Robinhood sought to give its users a bigger-than-normal chunk of its own IPO, allocating about 25% of its shares compared with a typical 10%. At the time, the firm said more than 300,000 users participated in the IPO, which raised about $2 billion and valued the company at $32 billion.

Earlier this year, Tenev said the market has grown more receptive to the idea than it was back then.

"We really had to claw and scratch and ask for favors to get retail these allocations," he said in April. Now, "pretty much every major IPO of consequence has been on Robinhood's platform."