- Mattress startup Casper filed to go public last week.
- Its IPO paperwork contained a few surprising takeaways about how Casper views its business and the sleep market in general.
- For example, the company hinted that it may invest in other categories like medical devices or pajamas.
- It also lists social media influencers as a risk factor to its business.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Buzzy online mattress startup Casper has officially filed to go public — but its IPO filing contains a few surprises.
Last week, the company publicly filed its S-1 paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of a planned listing on the New York Stock Exchange. As is customary, the filing included a variety of information, including the health of Casper's business and factors it perceives as being a risk to the company.
But the filing contained some eccentric and unusual nuggets of information, like the fact that Casper lists Instagram influencers as a risk factor or that the company could develop its own sleep apnea machine.
Here are some of the most surprising takeaways from Casper's IPO paperwork.
Casper warned that influencers could cause its business to take a hit.
Casper listed a number of risk factors in its S-1 filing, but perhaps most unusual was the one that involved influencers.
The startup relies on the influencer economy in part to market its products — Casper can pay or offer up free products to social media stars to advertise on Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat. If any of these influencers says or does something that "reflects poorly" on the brand, it could damage the company's reputation and IPO price. Alternatively, if an influencer shares a bad review, the company said, that could affect the business as well.
"Influencers with whom we maintain relationships could also engage in behavior or use their platforms to communicate directly with our customers in a manner that reflects poorly on our brand and may be attributed to us or otherwise adversely affect us," Casper wrote in the filing. "It is not possible to prevent such behavior, and the precautions we take to detect this activity may not be effective in all cases."
Casper views itself as a major player in the "sleep economy," not just the mattress market.
Casper's company ethos isn't defined by being a mattress company — it describes itself as being part of the "sleep economy," which encompasses everything that happens before, during, and after sleep. Casper calls this the "sleep arc" in its IPO paperwork.
But the company isn't just focused on the sleep of human adults: it wrote in its filing that it wants to understand and serve the sleep economy "in a holistic way" for babies and dogs, too.
It expects the global sleep market will grow at twice the rate of the global economy.
In one of the slides in Casper's filing, it valued the global sleep market at $432 billion, and projects that market will grow at an annual rate of 6.3% over the next five years, which is nearly twice as fast as the global economy grew in 2019.
Casper wrote that it expects the global sleep market to be worth $585 billion by 2024.
Casper is diving into other product categories, including potentially building its own sleep apnea machine.
"Our approach is to offer products and services across the entirety of the Sleep Arc under one brand," Casper wrote in its filing.
Beyond mattresses, the company's product lineup currently includes pillows, bedding, bed frames, weighted blankets, lamps, and more. But it plans to extend its wares significantly, mentioning these products in the filing:
- White noise machines
- Room diffusers
- Humidifiers
- Sleep trackers
- Bedside clocks
- Sleep apps
- Meditation apps
- Counseling apps
- Supplements
Casper also hinted that it could get into the medical devices market. In a chart in the filing, the company lists the market for continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, devices as being worth $25 billion. The machines help people who have sleep apnea breath more easily.
Casper may want to disrupt the pajamas market.
In the same graphic in its filing, Casper noted the "$32 billion" pajama market as being part of the global sleep economy.
It's a hint that the company may be considering its own line of pajamas in the future, which isn't much of a surprise: Casper already provides pajamas for American Airlines passengers to wear on long international flights.
And at its Dreamery space in Manhattan — where guests can enjoy a 45-minute nap on a Casper mattress inside a nap pod — the company supplies pajamas to wear during your visit. But when Business Insider visited in 2018, the provided set were made by pajama company Sleepy Jones and cost $178.
It's eyeing the $5 billion pet market, too.
Casper noted that there are opportunities in the $5 billion pet market as well. It lists mattresses, furniture, over-the-counter drugs, vitamins, and supplements for cats and dogs as part of the $432 billion global sleep economy.
Casper already dabbles in the pet market: it's been selling a memory-foam dog bed that comes in three sizes since 2018.
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