Taking a ‘big swing in the sleep space,’ Eight Sleep raises $86M for scaleup

As consumers are waking up to the importance of a good night’s sleep on their health and productivity, business has never been better for Eight Sleep, the Miami startup that leverages technology and data to engineer sleep products that restore individuals to their peak energy levels every morning.

Today, Eight Sleep announced it has closed $86 million in Series C funding. led by Valor Equity Partners, a Chicago private investment firm. SoftBank, Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, and General Catalyst participated in the round. SoftBank announced earlier this year Eight Sleep was a new portfolio company for its $100 million Miami  initiative.

According to Antonio Gracia, Valor’s founder and CEO, the sleep tech market is only in its infancy but the opportunity is “limitless.”

 “The first night I slept on the Pod I knew we had to get involved,” he said. “We’ve seen this in our portfolio many times – Eight Sleep’s products and technology are disrupting the sleep market, and its rapid innovation is outpacing the competition as it builds a new sleep fitness focused category that delivers results.”

As part of the transaction, Gracia joined Eight Sleep’s board. Notably for Eight Sleep, dubbed by some as “The Tesla of Sleep,” Gracia also sits on the board of Tesla, in addition to SpaceX and K Health, and has led investments in Bird, Reddit, Uber and other disruptive companies.

Founded in 2014, Eight Sleep sells Pods, which are smart mattresses and mattress covers with technology baked in that regulates your body temperature as well as collects data to further improve your sleep the more you use it. If you have a partner, the mattress’ sides function independently. All data goes directly to the Eight Sleep app, which also offers coaching on how to improve your sleep. The company says its case studies show that Eight Sleep Pod products help customers fall asleep up to 40% faster, get up to 20% more deep sleep, experience 30% fewer mid-night wake ups, and up to 30% fewer tosses and turns.

“Our end goal is to develop the most sophisticated technologies for restorative and preventative health and this round helps us invest in building the team that will develop the next-generation of Eight Sleep products,” said Matteo Franceschetti, co-founder and CEO of Eight Sleep, in a statement. “Beyond our successful solutions for thermoregulation, we’re working towards managing all of the factors that may disrupt users’ rest to ensure everyone can improve sleep fitness for better health, performance, and longevity.”

The new funding –  at a $500 million valuation, according to a Fortune report – will be used to accelerate product development and grow the size of the team. In total, Eight Sleep has raised over $150 million.

Expect big moves in new product innovation and development, especially with all the health data the startup has tracked and the insights that go back to the user, said Alexandra Zatarain, co-founder and VP of Brand & Marketing, in an interview with Refresh Miami.

 “For us, technology is really what drives our vision as a company and we really believe that technology can help us live healthier and better lives,” she said.

Eight Sleep recently launched what it calls the world’s first operating system for sleep optimization. SleepOS uses data to personalize and adjust the Pod toward each users’ unique sleep fitness goals.  “We’re certainly taking that big swing in the sleep space,” Zatarain said.

Franceschetti and Zatarain, who are married, moved to Miami from New York City in spring of 2020 and purchased their home in November, one of the early #MovetoMiami converts. Their home becomes a defector innovation hub, as they are always the first to test new products.

Revenue is on track to more than triple in 2021, Zatarain said, and Eight Sleep plans to expand distribution beyond the U.S. and Canada by the end of the year.

The company also plans to triple its team of 50, and Eight Sleep will be hiring for engineering roles from machine learning to backend engineering, front end engineers for web and mobile development, product designers, brand designers, product managers, inventory planning, finance roles, etc. “It’s a very exciting time where everyone is loving the product so there’s more demand than we can keep up with. We need to grow the organization across the board,” Zatarain said.

Eight Sleep is remote-first but Zatarain sees a hub growing in Miami, where five or six team members currently are now based, up from just one team member pre-Covid. “Every time [team members] come to visit, someone else falls in love,” Zatarain says. What’s more, the startup has been working with University of Miami on its talent pipeline, and Zatarain hopes many of the new jobs will be in Miami.

Eight Sleep has built a cult-like following among celebrities and athletes, including Miami’s Alex Rodriguez. The Sacramento Kings are sleeping with Eight Sleep – and it seems like everyone in #MiamiTech are superfans as well.

Zatarain said the feeling is mutual.

“It was probably one of those pivotal moments for the company, where Miami became the first place where people would recognize us as founders and I think it speaks to the density of people from tech,” she said. “I think it’s part of the wave of what’s been happening in Miami, and the openness of everyone to connect and to help support each other’s businesses too. We love it. I think that’s just a great energy to have as entrepreneurs.”

Photo at top of post: Eight Sleep’s co-founders Matteo Franceschetti (CEO), with Alexandra Zatarain (VP of Brand & Marketing), and Massimo Andreasi Bassi (CTO).

READ MORE ON REFRESH MIAMI: ‘Sleep hasn’t really changed since the Romans’ but Eight Sleep is changing that

Follow @ndahlberg on Twitter and email her at [email protected]

 

Nancy Dahlberg