Sleepless nights with the new-born led to the launch of Priyanka and Harshil Salot’s The Sleep Company, a premium mattress and related accessories brand. It started operations just five months before the nationwide lockdown hit the country in March 2020. Since the material invention had stopped in the 60s with the memory foam (which provides pressure relief), the Salots decided to focus on the much-needed comfort factor. Dr Tripathi, a consultant for one of the Salots’ family businesses, teamed up. SmartGRID was born out of a material used for treating elbow and hip joint pain. An in-house, rented manufacturing facility at Bhiwandi, near Mumbai with a handful of employees was as Harshil notes, “a moat for the business in the long term that seemed necessary to protect our IP, keep us agile to changes and remain quality consistent.” After positive feedback from family and friends, and a bit of marketing, the Salots got on Flipkart and Amazon.
Though half the market is above the price point of ₹15,000, SmartGRID, designed after taking into account body ergonomics and pressure per surface area, has given the brand an edge above the memory foam and spring mattresses in pricing, positioning it in the ₹18,000-30,000 range. A digital-first, D2C brand, 50% of The Sleep Company’s customers are from its web store, while the rest are from Flipkart and Amazon.
In fact, due to Covid, and awareness around sleep and pain relief (due to the work-from-home model), the brand has grown by 600% over the last one year, selling 100,000 units and adding over 100,000 customers — 30% from Tier-II. “We are currently at ₹100 crore annual recurring revenue (ARR) and are aiming at ₹500 crore within the next two years. An omni-channel reach is on the cards,” says Priyanka.
The Salots dream of revolutionising the comfort tech market, worth $7 billion in India and $400 billion-plus globally, addressing both the way people sleep and sit. The company will soon come up with its own range of sitting products, including office chairs, sofas etc.
With $6-million funding by Fireside Ventures in a single round, The Sleep Company is looking to raise another $20 million, valuing it at over $100 million. With its technology patent, the brand has made inroads into Japan and UAE and is awaiting patents in 25 locations for export. “Operating in India, one of the biggest consumer markets globally, we want to be pioneers in our field, like Apple in tech,” says Priyanka. — Vijayalakshmi Sridhar