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
Casper, a New York-based mattress startup, wants to make buying a new bed as easy as possible.
Instead of strapping a new, pricey mattress on to the top of your car or in a moving van, Casper has created a latex-memory foam bed.
It folds up into a box the size of a set of golf clubs and fits in the back of your average car trunk. Casper's beds can also be shipped directly to your door nationally. For orders in New York City, Casper says it can deliver a mattress in under two hours.
Casper CEO Philip Krim met his cofounders Gabriel Flateman, T. Luke Sherwin, Jeff Chapin, and Neil Parikh in a coworking space in 2013. "We starting talking about this idea of selling direct to customers with mattresses that we designed," Krim tells Business Insider. "Our goal was to see, one, if we could build the world's most comfortable bed, and then two, if we could sell it directly through our own site and efforts."
Fourteen months ago, Casper launched its website. In its first 28 days of business, the mattress startup generated $1 million in sales. Casper sells one proprietary type of mattress in six sizes - twin through California king - ranging in price from $500 to $950.
And on Tuesday, the company announced a $55 million Series B round of funding led by Institutional Venture Partners, with participation from Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Adam Levine, Scooter Braun, and Pritzker Group Venture Capital. Existing investors, including New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Vaizra Investments, SV Angel, Slow Ventures, and Queensbridge Ventures, also participated in the round.
In total, Casper has raised $70 million in venture capital funding.
The new round of funding will be used to allow Casper to expand into other "sleep products," Krim tells Business Insider - think pillows and blankets. It will also let Casper expand internationally.
In addition, Casper has recently dipped into editorial, too. The startup launched a magazine called Van Winkle's, built around the topic of sleep. Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers is the publication's editorial director.
Since launching 14 months ago, Casper has sold $30 million of mattresses in the US and Canada. The company pegs its current run rate at around $100 million. Its team numbers 75 people (and growing, Krim says), and the majority of its employee growth has happened over the past 6 months.
"Demand has wildly exceeded our expectations. Yesterday was our 14th month anniversary in business, and it's just been amazing," Krim tells Business Insider. "In our original presentation around our seed round, I think our goal was to have 2,000 customers in our first year. As of this month, 14 months in, we're over 50,000 customers."