The Eight Sleep co-founders aiming to improve your performance in bed
The world’s first sleep fitness company is developing hardware, software, and AI technologies to improve sleep: and Australia is a boom market.
“20 years ago it was macho to say, ‘Oh, I sleep only four hours’”, says Matteo Franceschetti, co-founder of bed-tech unicorn Eight Sleep.
We are sitting in the best appointed hotel room in Australia, with Jørn Utzon’s magnificent masterpiece framed perfectly in the floor to ceiling windows, right across the water.
Yet it’s Franceschetti’s masterpiece I can’t take my eyes off: the $7,000 bed that dominates the room. Actually, the bed is the Park Hyatt’s.
But underneath the crisp Egyptian linen is Eight Sleep’s Pod 4 Ultra, a high-tech layer that wraps around your mattress, similar to a fitted sheet, with a base underneath the mattress that allows custom sleeping and reading positions – for two people with two different personal profiles.
According to Franceschetti, the Pod 4 Ultra facilitates automatic heating and cooling of the Pod, integrating health-grade sensors that track your heart rate and breathing rate, while you sleep.
Now I – sadly – do not have $7,000 to spend on sleep-tech. But I am obsessed with sleep, and have been covering tech since the first dot com boom (and bust) in 1999.
The world’s first sleep fitness company
And the tech is just one part of Eight Sleep, which describes itself as the world’s first sleep fitness company, developing hardware, software, and AI technologies to improve sleep.
Franceschetti is in Sydney to speak at SXSW Sydney, accompanied by his co-founder and life partner Alexandra Zatarain (Eight Sleep’s vice president of brand and marketing).
The couple – and their chief technology officer Massimo Andreasi Bassi – are on a mission to improve sleep performance through technology.
“Executives used to say ‘I’m a tough guy, I don’t need to sleep more,’” says Franceschetti.
“Now a lack of sleep is seen as much a health issue as smoking or drinking a lot of alcohol.”
“The concept of ‘I’ll sleep when I die’ is dead,” he adds.
“Sleep deprivation is the new smoking.
“Today if you are publicly disclosing that you are not sleeping as CEO then you are not seen as not the right ambassador to lead your business.”
Why Aussies love Eight Sleep
Built to “fuel human potential through better sleep”, Eight Sleep has raised over US$160 million in funding.
The fast growing startup – most recently valued at more than USD$500 million – has been named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, recognised two years in a row by TIME’s “Best Inventions of the Year,” and is endorsed by F1 star Lewis Hamilton and podcaster Andrew Huberman.
Numerous CEOs, celebrities, artists and pro athletes are among Eight Sleep’s fans, with early adopters like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos all owners, and the business has sold over 100,000 units across nearly 30 countries.
International expansion accounts for almost 20% of Eight Sleep’s business, and according to Zatarain, Australia is already the brand’s best performing market per capita.
The company has accumulated over 500 million hours of sleep data, and is now recognised as one of the largest sleep experts globally.
And Aussies are apparently among some of the best sleepers tracked by Eight Sleep data (anonymously, of course).
“The Gold Coast in Queensland is the place in the world where people have the highest sleep score”, says Zatarain.
Why is sleep so important?
“Health is based on three pillars, sleep, fitness, nutrition, but sleep is the pillar”, says Franceschetti.
And if you can’t get eight hours sleep, at least try for a nap. “The nappachino is a game changer,” says the Italian CEO.
“It shouldn’t be longer than 30 minutes. If you drink an espresso right before you go to sleep it will help you feel fresh when you wake.
“Napping is like a superpower, if I could do it every day I would.
“And those 30 minutes will give you at least 3x your performance than if you hadn’t had a nap.”
Sleep is so essential to good performance.
“Jeff Bezos said the job of a CEO is to take three or four critical decisions each day,” Franceschetti continues.
“He said you need to sleep eight hours each day to be prepared like an athlete to make these decisions.”
According to Eight Sleep, the Pod has been clinically shown to increase deep sleep by up to 34%, sleep quality by 32%, and recovery by 19%.
Eight Sleep approaches sleep with the same importance as fitness and nutrition, using data and technology to revolutionise sleep.
The Pod continuously tracks heart rate during sleep with 99% accuracy— no wearable required — and gets smarter every day to provide optimal sleep.
It’s exciting tech. Just hoping I’ll find $7,000 down the back of my existing bed so I can afford one!
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