Sleep Company plans to use AI for sleep monitoring, temp control in mattresses
The company opened its 75th store in Hyderabad and plans to double that number by year-end; they project to be profitable by year-end and IPO-ready within 2 years
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Hyderabad: The Sleep Company, a comfort-tech brand known for its patented smart grid technology, plans on taking innovation in the mattress category to new heights. The startup is working on integrating smart technology such as Artificial Intelligence into the mattress for sleep monitoring, and temperature sensing, control.
The comfort-tech brand on Tuesday announced the launch of its eight company-owned, company-operated store in Hyderabad, and 75th in India.
Speaking at the event, Priyanka Salot, Co-founder, The Sleep Company, said: “We will continue to add new categories, new innovations, and new products based on AI, smart technology. One of the use cases is for sleep monitoring. Customers are not comfortable wearing wrist bands while sleeping, so what if the mattress has a monitor to track sleep patterns. Then, people’s feet turns cold at night, what if the mattress can sense the cold feet and become warmer. These are some of the new innovations to look forward this year.”
On adding new stores, Salot said the plan is to double the store count from 75 to 150 by end of this year, and open 200 stores in next 12 to 15 months. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, with 12 stores, is the second biggest geography for the brand. “In Hyderabad, we will double the count from eight to 16 stores within this year, and 20 by March 2025. We are present in Vijayawada, Guntur, and Visakhapatnam, and will soon be opening in Warangal. Hyderabad contributes more than 10 per cent to the total business,” she said.
The brand witnesses around 30 to 35 per cent of the demand come in from tier-1 city and below, while 65 per cent is from metros, hence Salot informed The Sleep Company will open stores accordingly, to cater to the demand in these markets. The startup took off as a digital-first brand in 2019, and started opening stores 18 months back, due to customers demand. The co-founder informed that offline contributes more than 50 per cent to their overall sales.
According to Salot, the size of mattress market is $2 billion in India, of which the organised market is around Rs 6,000 to 7,000 crore. The branded mattress market is growing at a CAGR of 10 per cent.
On the turnover and growth The Sleep Company looks forward to, Salot said they reported a turnover Rs 320 crore in the last fiscal, and are aiming to reach Rs 1,000 crore in the next 2-3 years. “In the next two years we want to be IPO ready. For this, we want to double the business and make sure to hit the profit mark. As we have enough funding now we want to get to profitability by the end of this year, which we are confident of. Legacy brands are not actually growing, while the mattress category itself is growing at 10 per cent, and we as a startup are growing at a rate of 160 per cent. In terms of topline, The Sleep Company is in the top five, and second biggest brand in the digital ecosystem. We are confident that we will overtake these brands through our innovative products and competitive pricing.”
