Casper Sleep

Last updated
Casper Sleep Inc.
Company type Private
NYSE: CSPR (2020–2022)
Industry Mattresses
FoundedApril 22, 2014;9 years ago (2014-04-22)
FoundersPhilip Krim
Neil Parikh
T. Luke Sherwin
Jeff Chapin
Gabe Flateman
Headquarters New York City, New York, U.S.
Area served
Canada, United States, Europe
Products Mattresses, pillows, sheets, dog mattresses
RevenueIncrease2.svg $439.258 million(2019) [1]
Increase2.svg -$88.746 million (2019) [1]
Decrease2.svg -$93.04 million (2019) [1]
Total assets Increase2.svg $230 million (2019) [1]
Total equity Decrease2.svg -$307.094 million (2019) [1]
OwnerDurational Capital Management (2022–present)
Website casper.com

Casper Sleep Inc. (also known as Casper) is an e-commerce company that sells sleep products online and in retail locations. Headquartered in New York City, the company has showrooms in New York City, Chicago, and elsewhere. Its mattresses are manufactured in Georgia and Pennsylvania. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

History

Casper was launched in April 2014 [5] by Philip Krim (previously of The Merrick Group, angelbeds.com, tranquilitymattress.com and SleepBetterStore.com), [6] Neil Parikh, T. Luke Sherwin, Jeff Chapin (previously of IDEO), and Gabriel Flateman. [7] [8] [9]

In January 2014, the company raised $1.85 million [10] in its first round of funding. The round was led by Lerer Ventures and Norwest Ventures and also included funding from Crosslink Partners, Vaizra Investments, and Correlation Ventures. [11]

On April 22, 2014, Casper officially launched [12] In August 2014, an additional $13.1 million was received in Series A funding, including investments from New Enterprise Associates, [13] Ron Conway’s SV Angel, Ashton Kutcher's firm, A-Grade Investments, fashion designer Steven Alan, Queensbridge Venture Partners, and the investment group of musical artist Nas. [14] [15] [16]

In November 2014, Casper expanded its delivery from the contiguous United States to include Canada. [3]

Led by Institutional Venture Partners, the company raised $55 million Series B venture funding in June 2015. [17] The Series B funding included participation from celebrity investors: Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Scooter Braun, Adam Levine, and Pritzker Group Venture Capital. [18] [19]

Led by Target Corporation, the company raised $170 million in Series C funding in June 2017. [20] The Series C funding included participation from Tresalia, Institutional Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, and Irving Investors. [21] [22] In September 2017, Casper collaborated with American Airlines. [23] [24]

In April 2018, Casper Sleep partnered with American Airlines to design pillows, blankets and other products for the airline's passengers. [25] Casper also announced later in April that they would be opening up a Canadian office in Toronto, along with a manufacturing facility in the country. [26]

In early 2019, Casper Sleep received a $100 million Series D funding from its existing investors Target, NEA, IVP, and Norwest Venture Partners, as well as new sponsors Dani Reiss of the Canada Goose Holdings and Gordon Segal of Crate & Barrel. [19] [27] Dani Reiss also entered the startup's new independent board directors along with Karen Katz (board member of Under Armour and former CEO of Neiman Marcus Group). [27] With the new round of funding, the company was valued at $1.1 billion, according to Bloomberg and Casper Sleep. [19]

On January 10, 2020, Casper Sleep Inc filed an S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission declaring their intention to IPO under the ticker CSPR. [28]

On February 6, 2020, it went public at $12 per share, translating to a market value of $476 million, listing on New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CSPR. [29] On March 31, 2020, its stock dropped to $4.12 per share, translating to a market value of $163 million, down from its $1.1 billion valuation in March, 2019. [30]

In April 2020, Casper announced the winding down of its European operations and laid off 21% of its staff (78 people) after a poor IPO performance and declining revenues due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [31] [32] Additionally, the company announced that Greg Macfarlane, Casper’s CFO and COO, would depart the company in May. [33]

In November 2021, Casper announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Durational Capital Management. [34] The transaction completed in January 2022 and Casper's stock was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. [35] [36]

Casper published Van Winkle's, a news website focusing on sleep until November 2018. [37] After the shutdown of Van Winkle's, Casper announced a quarterly lifestyle magazine, Woolly. [38]

Retail presence

A Casper shop in the Dadeland Mall, Florida in 2021. Casper Dadeland Mall, 2021.jpg
A Casper shop in the Dadeland Mall, Florida in 2021.

In June 2016, Casper began selling their mattresses at West Elm stores in the United States and Canada. [39] However, the partnership ended in October 2017, with Leesa replacing Casper. [40]

In January 2018, Casper opened temporary nap pods inside of seven Indigo Books and Music locations in Canada. [41] In February 2018, Casper's first permanent store opened in New York City. [42] [19] [43] In April 2018, Casper announced that they would be opening stores in four Canadian provinces over twelve months, beginning with two Toronto locations in spring 2018. [44] In June, they announced a partnership with the Hudson's Bay Company to begin selling Casper products at 16 Hudson's Bay stores, 26 Home Outfitters stores and thebay.com in Canada. [45]

In July 2018, Casper announced the launch of the Dreamery, a “physical sleep experience” that will let city dwellers book 45 minutes of downtime in one of its nine private rooms. The concept store was located just behind its Manhattan flagship in Greenwich Village. [46] On July 13, 2018, Casper announced they are now available to try and purchase at Nordstrom. [47]

Controversies

In April 2016, Casper sued three mattress review websites which had written negative reviews of Casper products. [48] According to the lawsuits, the websites steered potential customers of Casper products to competing mattress companies, which Casper claimed is a deceptive advertising practice. The lawsuit against one of the review websites, Sleepopolis, was resolved after Casper financed its acquisition. [49]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Index Ventures</span> European worldwide venture capital firm

Index Ventures is a European venture capital firm with dual headquarters in San Francisco and London, investing in technology-enabled companies with a focus on e-commerce, fintech, mobility, gaming, infrastructure/AI, and security. Since its founding in 1996, the firm has invested in a number of companies and raised approximately $5.6 billion. Index Venture partners appear frequently on Forbes’ Midas List of the top tech investors in Europe and Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accel (company)</span> Venture capital firm

Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional operating funds in London, India and China.

Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is an American venture and growth equity investment firm. The firm targets early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, Internet, SaaS, business and financial services, and healthcare. Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, Norwest has offices in San Francisco and subsidiaries in Mumbai, India and Tel Aviv, Israel. The firm has funded more than 650 companies since inception.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Insight Partners</span> American investment manager

Insight Partners is a global venture capital and private equity firm that invests in high-growth technology, software, and Internet businesses. The company is headquartered in New York City, with offices in London, Tel Aviv, and Palo Alto.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GV (company)</span> Venture capital unit of Alphabet Inc.

GV Management Company, L.L.C. is a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., founded by Bill Maris, that provides seed, venture, and growth stage funding to technology companies. Founded as Google Ventures in 2010, the firm has operated independently of Google, Alphabet's search and advertising division, since 2015. GV invests in startup companies in a variety of fields ranging from the Internet, software, and hardware to life science, healthcare, artificial intelligence, transportation, cyber security and agriculture. It has helped finance more than 300 companies that include Uber, Nest, Slack, and Flatiron Health.

Crunchbase is a company that provides information about businesses. Their content includes investment and funding information, individuals in leadership positions, and corporate news.

Greycroft is an American venture capital firm. It manages over $2 billion in capital with investments in companies such as Bird, Bumble, HuffPost, Goop, Scopely, The RealReal, and Venmo. Greycroft was founded in 2006 by Alan Patricof, Dana Settle, and Ian Sigalow. The firm is headquartered in New York City and Los Angeles.

Andreessen Horowitz is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of April 2023, Andreessen Horowitz ranks first on the list of venture capital firms by assets under management, with $35 billion as of March 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">500 Global</span> U.S. startup accelerator

500 Global is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its incubator office in Mountain View, California in February 2011. They expanded to a second class of 21 in June 2011 and a third class of 34 in October 2011.

Capillary Technologies is an international SaaS technology company. Capillary's primary product is its cloud-based customer loyalty/customer engagement and e-commerce platform, Intelligent Loyalty. Capillary also offers loyalty and other marketing consulting services.

Rajen Ruparell is a Canadian entrepreneur, investor, board director and philanthropist. He is best known as the Founder and Chairman of Endy and as Co-Founder of Groupon International via acquisition of his company Citydeal.


Crosslink Capital is a venture capital firm with an asset management business that continues into the public equity market for fast-growing companies. Crosslink Capital has over $3.0 billion in assets under management that it invests in consumer and enterprise businesses.

Sojern provides a digital marketing platform for the travel industry that utilizes programmatic buying and machine learning technology. Sojern partners with travel companies including airlines, OTAs, hotels, and rental car companies to collect anonymized traveler data based on consumers' online travel search and booking behavior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Misfit (company)</span> American consumer electronics company

Misfit, Inc. was an American consumer electronics company founded on 14 October 2011 by Sonny Vu, Sridhar Iyengar and John Sculley, owned by Fossil Group. It specialized in wearable technology that utilizes sensors and home automation products. Misfit's wearable activity trackers and count sleep, calories, and basic steps that can be synced to a mobile app on a compatible smartphone. Vu and Iyengar previously co-founded AgaMatrix, a company that made the iBGStar, the first FDA approved Smartphone medical device.

Valar Ventures is a US-based venture capital fund founded by Andrew McCormack, James Fitzgerald and Peter Thiel in 2010. Historically, the majority of the firm's investments have been in technology startups based outside of Silicon Valley, including in Europe, the UK, the US and Canada. Valar Ventures originally spun out of Thiel Capital, Peter Thiel's global parent company based in San Francisco, and is now headquartered near Madison Square in Manhattan. The firm's namesake is the Valar of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, who are god-like immortal spirits that chose to enter the mortal world to prepare it for their living creations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helix Sleep</span> E-commerce platform

Helix Sleep is a privately held, U.S.-based, e-commerce platform, that sells home goods brands. The company is headquartered in New York City. All mattresses and sofas are manufactured in the US, and the company ships product to the United States and Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eight Sleep</span> American technology company

Eight Sleep is an American company that develops products for "sleep fitness".

Nium is a Singapore-headquartered cross-border payments company. Initially founded by Prajit Nanu and Michael Bermingham, and launched as a consumer-remittance platform Instarem in 2014. In 2016, the company introduced its B2B payments platform and rebranded as Nium in 2019, subsequently elevating Pratik Gandhi to co-founder in 2021.

Swiggy is an Indian online food ordering and delivery platform. Founded in 2014, Swiggy is headquartered in Bangalore and operates in more than 500 Indian cities as of September 2021. Besides food delivery, the platform also provides on-demand grocery deliveries under the name Instamart, and a same-day package delivery service called Swiggy Genie.

Simba Sleep is a British online mattress group that was founded in 2015. It manufactures and sells mattresses, bedding and other sleep products in several countries, including the UK, Canada and China. Simba's retail partnerships include John Lewis and Argos in the UK and Sleep Country stores in Canada.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Casper Sleep Inc. Form 10K". United States Securities and Exchange Commission. March 19, 2020. Retrieved February 22, 2021.
  2. ↑ "Company Overview of Casper Sleep Inc". Bloomberg Business. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  3. 1 2 Hardy, Ian (19 November 2014). "Casper, The "Outrageously Comfortable" Mattress, is now Available to Canadians". Betakit.com. Betakit. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  4. ↑ Casper Store Locator https://stores.casper.com/?q=10036
  5. ↑ Griffith, Erin; Primack, Dan (29 May 2015). "Exclusive: Mattress startup Casper raising big new funding round". Fortune.com. Fortune. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
  6. ↑ Business Spotlight: Better sleep, one mattress at a time - Jewish Herald-Voice, 18 Feb 2010
  7. ↑ Weber, Harrison (25 February 2014). "A startup for your mattress: Casper raises $1.6M to reinvent sleep". Venture Beat. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  8. ↑ Mochari, Ilan (22 April 2015). "How This Mattress Startup Made $20 Million in 10 Months". Inc.com.
  9. ↑ Wadler, Joyce (10 February 2010). "More Than a Place to Rest". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  10. ↑ Weiss, Geoff (22 April 2014). "This Startup Aims to Be the Tesla of Mattresses". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  11. ↑ Primack, Dan. "Deals of the day: Shape Security raises $40 million". Fortune. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  12. ↑ Ha, Anthony (25 February 2014). "Casper Raises $1.6M To Offer A New Approach To Building And Selling Mattresses". TechCrunch.com. Tech Crunch. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  13. ↑ Fiegerman, Seth (7 August 2014). "Casper Raises $13 Million to Help You Sleep Better at Night". Mashable.com. Mashable. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
  14. ↑ Pasquarelli, Adrianne (7 August 2014). "Ashton Kutcher puts millions into mattress startup". Crain's New York Business. Crain's. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  15. ↑ Fischer, Ben. "Sleep startup Casper stands out in early days, investors say". BizJournals.com. New York Business Journal. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  16. ↑ Kolodny, Lora (7 August 2014). "Casper Sleep Raises $13.1M From Celebs and VCs to Make a Better Bed". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  17. ↑ Kolodny, Lora (22 June 2015). "Casper Raises $50 Million to Expand Its Mattress Business". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 15 June 2016.
  18. ↑ Kosoff, Maya. "A startup that delivers fluffy mattresses in boxes the size of golf bags just raised $55 million from investors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire". Businessinsider.com. Retrieved 15 June 2016.
  19. 1 2 3 4 "Mattress startup Casper valued at $1.1B with new funding". TechCrunch. 27 March 2019. Archived from the original on 2021-03-29. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
  20. ↑ "Casper Raises $170 Million in Series C Funding". PR Newswire (Press release). PR Newswire. Retrieved 17 July 2017.
  21. ↑ "The 10 Largest US Startup Funding Rounds of June 2017". Alley watch. 11 July 2017. Retrieved 17 July 2017.
  22. ↑ "Casper closes $170M Series C". Pitchbook. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  23. ↑ "This Casper and American Airlines Collab Could Finally Mean a Good In-Flight Sleep". PureWow. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  24. ↑ "Casper Is Designing a Full Suite of Sleep Products for American Airlines". Travel + Leisure. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  25. ↑ "All the Amenities Airlines are Offering for Healthier Flights". The New York Times. 2018-04-04. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2018-04-10.
  26. ↑ "Online mattress retailer Casper to open stores in Canada". CTV News . 17 April 2018. Retrieved 20 April 2018.
  27. 1 2 "Mattress Startup Casper Joins the Unicorn Club With Latest Funding". 2019-04-13. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
  28. ↑ "Casper S-1 Filing Prospectus". SEC. Archived from the original on 7 February 2020. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  29. ↑ Casper low valuation Forbes, 2020/02/06
  30. ↑ Business Insider
  31. ↑ Mascarenhas, Natasha (2020-04-21). "Casper winds down European operations and lays off 78 people". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  32. ↑ Wilhelm, Alex (2020-02-05). "In a gloomy portent for 2020 debuts, Casper lowers its IPO price range". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  33. ↑ Segran, Elizabeth (2020-04-21). "Breaking: Casper lays off 78 corporate employees, winds down Europe business". Fast Company. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  34. ↑ "Casper Sleep Inc. to Be Acquired by Durational Capital Management". Business Wire. November 15, 2021 – via Yahoo! Finance.
  35. ↑ "Durational Capital Management Completes Acquisition of Casper" (Press release). Business Wire. January 2022.
  36. ↑ "Casper". Durational Capital Management. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
  37. ↑ Bereznak, Alyssa (2017-09-26). "Can Tech Startups Do Journalism?". The Ringer. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  38. ↑ Marshall, Jack (7 November 2017). "Mattress Company Shutters Web Publication, Pivots to Print". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  39. ↑ Ashley O'Brien, Sara (29 June 2016). "West Elm partners with mattress startup Casper". CNNMoney . Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  40. ↑ Feldman, Amy (5 September 2017). "With Its New Budget-Minded 'Essential' Mattress, Casper Takes Aim At The Masses". Forbes . Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  41. ↑ William-Ross, Lindsay (22 January 2018). "You can now take a nap in a birdhouse "pod" inside this store". Vancouver is Awesome. Glacier Media . Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  42. ↑ Bhattarai, Abha (27 February 2018). "Mattress start-up Casper is opening its first store — with complimentary naps". The Washington Post . Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  43. ↑ "Casper opens a storefront for $25 naps". TechCrunch. 11 July 2018. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
  44. ↑ Shaw, Hollie (17 April 2018). "Bed-in-a-box maker Casper to bring retail stores, manufacturing to Canada". Financial Post . Retrieved 20 April 2018.
  45. ↑ Griggs, Frank (8 June 2018). "Try a Casper Mattress at Hudson's Bay and Home Outfitters". The Point: The Official Blog of Hudson's Bay. Hudson's Bay Company. Archived from the original on 7 July 2018. Retrieved 7 July 2018.
  46. ↑ Wolf, Jaine (11 July 2018). "You Can Pay to Nap at This Mattress Company's New Store". Time . Retrieved 11 July 2018.
  47. ↑ Battle, Marquaysa (13 July 2018). "Important Sleep News: Casper Mattresses Are Now Available at Nordstrom". Us Weekly . Retrieved 13 July 2018.
  48. ↑ Del Rey, Jason (23 September 2017). "Casper went to war with a popular mattress reviews site — then financed its takeover". Recode . Retrieved 9 January 2019.
  49. ↑ McKay, Tom (24 September 2017). "Mattress Startup Casper Sued a Mattress Review Site, Then Paid for Its Acquisition". Gizmodo. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.