The Sleep Company has announced a Series C funding of Rs 184 crore in equity from Premji Invest and Fireside Ventures today in a strategic footprint expansion across the country and internationally as well. 

Both the investors had previously participated in a Series B funding and had invested Rs 177 crore in the 2019 born start-up in November 2022. 

"Our existing investors, Premji Invest and Fireside Ventures are so confident about our growth that they didn’t want any new investors to come in. So, they’ve doubled down on their investment which comes at a valuation of more than 2x of our last round,” said Harshil Salot, co-founder of The Sleep Company in an exclusive interaction with Outlook Start-Up. 

After the fresh round of equity fundraising, the co-founders at The Sleep Company will continue to hold the majority of the stake in the company which is around 50 per cent, however, Harshil also mentioned that the investors together have less than around 50 per cent and the numbers are not specified as of yet. 

Funds Into Action 

The Sleep Company which was primarily a digital-only brand until June 2022, opened its first experience center in June 2022 in Bangalore. According to the company, post 16 months now, they have their presence across 20 cities with 60 stories pan India, most of which are present tier 1 cities and the 60th store launch has just been announced. 

According to Harshil, the funds will be used for retail footprint expansion in tier I and tier II cities as the company aims to open 100 more stores in the next six months and another 100 by March 2025. 

“A substantial portion of the money that we’ve raised will go into expanding our retail footprint in about 45 cities in India in the coming 6 months.  We are also looking into becoming the best comfort-tech player, changing the way people sleep and sit. So, a good amount would go to brand building as well. Also, innovation remains the top priority as we are the only provider of SmartGRID technology.” He added that The Sleep Company has its own patent granted in India, China, and Japan for the SuperGRID technology and the patent has been filed in 20+ countries across the world. 

According to the founders, the company is already selling in Japan and the UK with great initial traction. While in India, 80 per cent of the company’s business is d2c and the company has reported a 50-50 revenue split between offline and online channels, contrary to the industry trends, within a year of entering retail and omnichannel. 

Priyanka Salot, co-founder of The Sleep Company stated that the company is doing Rs 350 crore net sales and is looking to clock in Rs 1000 crore PAT positive by 2025 

“Unlike the other players in the industry, we started with the hard route, we started having our own experience centers instead of going to distributors or retailers, as they don’t really think of the customer experience and only their margins. Most of our consumers still discover us online and end up purchasing it in the offline stores or online after getting the touch and feel at stores, thus balancing it.” She commented on achieving a balanced proportion of 50-50 revenue split.  

According to research firm Redseer, the mattress market in India is $2.5 billion as of now, which is growing at a CAGR of 10 per cent. This indicates that around 9 million units of mattresses are sold every year in India for quality sleep. However, on the contrary, India is also considered as one of the most sleep deprived nations in the world. A report by Inc42 states that mattress start-ups have seen more than a three-fold increase in funding in the recent years making way for new players.