By Dennis Phelps, IVP General Partner & James Newell, IVP Vice President
A well-spent day brings happy sleep. Leonardo da Vinci
Yeah, but so does a Casper. - IVP
Today, IVP announces a $30 million investment in Casper, the NY-based start up that is upending the sleep industry. IVP served as the lead investor in the company's $55 million growth financing, and we couldn't be more excited about helping our new partners build the next truly great consumer brand in restfulness. If you're one of the tens of millions of Americans who struggle to get enough sleep each night, you should be excited too.
For those of you who don't know IVP, we're a later-stage venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, CA. We've been investing in technology start ups since 1980, and we have a long history of backing exceptional consumer companies such as Dropbox, Dropcam, Netflix, Twitter, Snapchat, Supercell, and The Honest Company.
So why is a leading Silicon Valley venture firm so excited about a NY-based start up that sells mattresses online?
A Considered Purchase
There are few things in life as personal or intimate as the bed one lays in every evening, and even fewer that have as much of a direct impact on one's mental and physical heath as a good night's sleep. For most of us, a mattress investment is one that lasts 5-7 years or more, and it's where we spend 1/3 of our time. That's why the decision to buy a new mattress is one of the larger considered purchases a household will make each decade. Sure, a mattress isn't as expensive as a car or boat, but a good one can cost more than many large home appliances and consumers deserve so much more than they are getting from the legacy mattress companies.
A California King-Sized Market
The US mattress industry generates over $15 billion per year in retail sales. Outside the US, the international markets are nearly three times larger in aggregate . and that's just mattresses. If you add the sales of bedding supplies, humidifiers, noise machines, ear plugs, eye masks, sleep supplements and the like, the market for sleep-related products is truly massive.
The Princess and the Pea
Despite its immense scale, the US sleep industry has experienced little innovation during the last several decades, or even centuries for that matter. The common innerspring coil mattress that most of us grew up with was originally designed to work in horse drawn carriages in the year 1871 1871!!! That was the year that Orville Wright was born, and the United States consisted of only 37 states. Think about that for a second. Over that same time period, we've invented or discovered the light bulb, Penicillin, airplanes, nuclear fission, space shuttles, iPhones and Teslas, but the vast majority of modern Americans still sleep on a padded coil of springs.
It's All About the Latex
Perhaps the greatest innovation in recent years has been the introduction of combination latex and memory dual foam mattresses. Produced with technology originally introduced by Dunlop in 1926 and initially sold only to British royalty, vulcanized rubber latex foam mattresses have long been more popular in Europe than in the US. This core innovation was vastly improved upon a mere seven decades later in 1992 when the first mattress incorporated memory foam, an advanced polyurethane material developed by NASA in the 1970s. Today, these dual foam mattresses are widely perceived by educated consumers as more comfortable than innerspring mattresses due to their soft yet supportive construction, better motion isolation and insulated temperature control characteristics. Over the last two decades, dual foam mattresses have grown popular with consumers suffering from insomnia, back pain and numerous other health problems, as well as those who just prefer a more comfortable night's sleep. However, until Casper arrived, these newer space age mattresses were generally priced outside the reach of many consumers.
Cutting Out the Middleman
Throughout the US, in each local geography, there are typically a very small number of companies that control a large percentage of the retail distribution of mattresses, and they often use pushy sales and marketing tactics that result in consumer confusion that better serves the interests of the mattress industry than families. Until the arrival of Casper, the mattress industry's multi-tiered distribution structure also resulted in highly marked-up retail prices for dual foam mattresses that kept them out of homes of many consumers. At IVP, we've witnessed first hand the advantages produced by direct-to-consumer brands such as The Honest Company and Warby Parker that control the customer experience from production all the way through to delivery (and beyond) in a way that was impossible before the advent of the Internet and modern-age logistics networks.
Buying a Mattress Can Be . Fun?
Think about the last time you had to buy a mattress. Were you looking forward to the shopping experience? How comfortable were you when you walked into the showroom? With your salesperson? With the delivery process? If you were as frustrated as we were, try for comparison curling up on your couch under your favorite blanket and visiting casper.com. Watch the video of how they make the mattresses. Read about the 100-day no-questions-asked return policy that will send someone to your home to pick up your new mattress if you aren't satisfied. Then click on over to YouTube and witness first hand what others experienced when a Casper box the size of large suitcase is delivered to their home and they opened it up... We can't remember the last time we heard a mattress delivery described as magical or fun Order a Casper and you will never look back!
Catching the Incumbents Sleeping
Casper has orchestrated one
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
In a live broadcast from the Reagan National Defense Forum, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik joined Morgan Brennan on CNBCs Closing Bell: Overtime. Ku...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Introducing New Perks to Help You Get Even More from LinkedIn Premium Published on Dec 5, 2025 Categories: Company News, Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Co...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
04/12/2025
SBS launches Future Frames initiative to support emerging First Nations video ed...
By Dennis Phelps, IVP General Partner & James Newell, IVP Vice President
