Sleep Startup Casper Raises $55 Million in Series B Funding

NEW YORK, June 23, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Casper (casper.com), the sleep startup that launched with an outrageously comfortable mattress, today announces the close of a $55M Series B investment round. The new investment was led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), and includes 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 June 2014, Casper announced $13.1M in Series A funding led by NEA, bringing its total funding to $69.95M. 

Casper is one of the fastest growing consumer brands of all time, launching in April 2014 and earning $1M in revenue in its first 28 days. The company quickly struck a chord with consumers in a category that has stagnated for decades, and pegs its current run rate at around $100M.

Casper's first product, its eponymous mattress, has won numerous design awards and is critically acclaimed for its universal comfort. Consumer Reports concluded that "Casper has a winner in this memory- and latex-foam mattress, which scored impressively across the board." The critically acclaimed bed was designed and engineered in-house by former IDEO inventors. Its patent-pending sleep surface is made in America and unites memory and latex foams to sleep cool and provide perfect support. It ships free via UPS or bike messenger in a mini fridge-sized box, and is backed by a 100-day in-home trial period and 10-year warranty.

The new investment will provide the company with the resources to further its innovation arm, Casper Labs, and engineer, test, and launch new products on a faster timeline.

"Since our launch just 14 months ago, Casper has been inundated with requests for more sleep products," says Philip Krim, Casper CEO and co-founder. "We're excited to launch new products with the same dedication to design and engineering that allowed us to develop our universally comfortable mattress. And we're equally thrilled to bring these products to a larger audience."

"Casper's meteoric rise is the direct result of its exceptional ability to hit a nerve with alienated consumers," says Dennis Phelps, General Partner at Institutional Venture Partners, who as part of the investment, has joined Casper's board of directors as an observer. "Casper is already conquering the US mattress market with its category-owning brand, and is poised to meet the overwhelming demand for international disruption of this industry."

The current board of directors consists of Casper CEO and co-founder Philip Krim, Casper COO and co-founder Neil Parikh, Tony Florence (NEA), and Ben Lerer (Lerer Hippeau Ventures). Dennis Phelps (IVP) joins as a Board Observer.

About Casper:
Casper is an award-winning sleep startup that launched with an outrageously comfortable mattress sold directly to consumers — eliminating commission ­driven, inflated prices. The critically­ acclaimed sleep surface was developed in-house by a team of product engineers with experience from IDEO, has a sleek design, and is delivered right to your door in a small, "how did they do that?" sized box. casper.com @casper

About Institutional Venture Partners (IVP):
With $5.4 billion of committed capital, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is one of the premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firms in the United States. Founded in 1980, IVP has invested in over 300 companies and 102 have gone public. IVP is one of the top-performing firms in the industry and has a 34-year IRR of 43.2%. IVP specializes in venture growth investments, industry rollups, founder liquidity transactions and select public market investments. IVP investments include such notable companies as AppDynamics, ArcSight, Buddy Media, ComScore, Datalogix, Domo, Dropbox, Dropcam, Fleetmatics, HomeAway, Kayak, LegalZoom, LifeLock, Marketo, MySQL, Netflix, Omniture, OnDeck, Prosper, Pure Storage, RetailMeNot, Shazam, Slack, Snapchat, SoundCloud, Supercell, Synchronoss, The Honest Company, Twitter, Zenefits, and Zynga. For more information, visit http://www.ivp.com or follow IVP on Twitter: @ivp.

About New Enterprise Associates (NEA):
New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. With nearly $17 billion in cumulative committed capital since inception NEA invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company's lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm's long track record of successful investing includes more than 200 portfolio company IPOs and more than 320 acquisitions. www.nea.com.

SOURCE Casper

Related Links

http://www.casper.com/