Silicon Valley Throws $100M at AI-Powered Mattress With a Subscription

Eight Sleep, a startup that sells $3,000 AI-powered mattresses with a month-to-month subscription price, simply raised $100 million in Sequence D funding, hoping to bolster a comparatively novel thought throughout the shopper discretionary sector.

The spherical—led by Founders Fund, Y Combinator, Valor Fairness Companions, and HSG (previously Sequoia China)—additionally drew investments from F1 driver Charles Leclerc and McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown.

The deal pushes the corporate’s valuation to about $500 million, with greater than $500 million in Pod gross sales reported since launch.

Eight Sleep’s “Pod” system makes use of water-filled tubes in a mattress cowl to regulate mattress temperature between 55°F and 110°F (13-43 °C).

Constructed-in sensors monitor coronary heart fee, respiration, and coronary heart fee variability, which an AI system known as Autopilot makes use of to tweak the atmosphere in actual time.

Costs begin at $2,500 for the mattress topper, and climb over $4,000 for the entire system. Then there’s a $17–$25 month-to-month subscription for “superior options”—as a result of sure, even your mattress now wants a membership plan.

The corporate has amassed a high-profile fan base, together with Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Scarlett Johansson swears by it, and biohacker Bryan Johnson, who spends $2M a yr on anti-aging, is one other consumer.

“This new funding permits us to speed up the deployment of AI for sleep optimization, develop into medical functions like menopausal sleep and sleep apnea, and convey our expertise to tens of millions of individuals all over the world,” CEO Matteo Franceschetti mentioned within the announcement. The previous lawyer, turned sleep obsessive, based the corporate in 2014 after struggling together with his personal sleep points.

However not all of the suggestions has been constructive. On social media, customers have shared tales about glitches that trigger the system to cease working solely, leaving them with an costly, non-functional mattress. Others have reported points with water leaks and connectivity issues.

The system’s AI has been known as a “black box” by some customers, who complain it doesn’t present clear knowledge.

Eight Sleep’s new funding will help the event of what it calls a “Sleep Agent,” an AI that can run hundreds of nightly simulations to additional refine a consumer’s relaxation. The corporate can also be looking for FDA approval for medical functions of its expertise, together with treating menopausal scorching flashes and sleep apnea..

The corporate says its AI fashions have processed over 1 billion hours of sleep knowledge. With $100 million in contemporary capital, the guess for Eight Sleep stays that its mix of {hardware} and software program will proceed to discover a first rate resting place, regardless of the value.