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“Sleep fitness” startup Eight Sleep has won praise for its smart bedding from health-optimizing tech types like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, but now it wants to find more customers on Main Street, Katie Deighton reports.
The 11-year-old company has raised $100 million in new funding, partly to expand into physical retail and medical devices that insurance could cover.
It’s also working real, non-tech customers into its marketing, betting that growing interest in health and longevity will drive more people to spend big on their nightly snooze. And it plans to add lower-cost products.
But the price of the Eight Sleep’s core offering—a mattress cover and router-shaped hub that provide features including cooling, heating and data tracking—remains significant (even before the optional $1,000 blanket).
“Our audience is still someone who’s spending $3,000 on a high-tech device to help them sleep better,” said Alexandra Zatarain, co-founder and vice president of brand and marketing. “But they are normal people—they are doctors and they are dancers and they are teachers.”
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