Dive Brief:
- Mattress company Casper on Friday filed a document with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CSPR.
- The price range of the initial public offering price has yet to be determined, according to the filing, but it weathered heavy losses alongside its recent revenue growth, a mix that may unsettle public investors, the Wall Street Journal said.
- Casper reported $312.3 million in revenue for the nine months ending in September 2019, up 20% from the year ago period, and $67.4 million in losses, a 4.9% increase from the previous year. Additionally, the company spent $423 million on marketing expenses from 2016 through 2019.
Dive Insight:
Since its 2014 founding, Casper has come up against numerous "bed-in-a-box" competitors, including Purple, Nectar, Tuft & Needle and Allswell. It has also substantially redirected business away from traditional mattress companies like Tempur Sealy International Inc. and Mattress Firm Inc.
While Casper has been frequently hailed as a direct-to-consumer disruptor since its founding, the SEC filing reveals the company has been steadily reporting losses. In 2018, the same year Retail Dive named the mattress company startup of the year for being an innovator in its category, the company lost $92 million.
Casper maintains there is still a tremendous amount of potential growth in the category, and their IPO is an optimistic step in that direction towards long-term profitability. The company cites the Frost & Sullivan Assessment, which forecasts the "sleep economy" will be $585 billion globally by 2024, with the United States representing $95 billion of those sales.
"We believe that sleep consists of more than just the act of sleeping, and instead, includes the entire set of human behaviors that span from bedtime to wake-up and affect sleep quality," it wrote in its prospectus. It's an indicator the company will continue to think beyond just mattresses and is focused on developing into a lifestyle brand that encompasses a wider span of products. This past fall, Casper announced a partnership with edibles startup Plus for CBD gummies, and has introduced bed frames, bedding, dog beds and a smart nightlight called Casper Glow.
In March 2019, Casper achieved unicorn status with a post-money valuation of $1.1 billion after landing a funding round of $100 million. Investors included Target, the CEO of Canada Goose and the founder and former chairman of Crate & Barrel.
In an effort to stave off the disastrous fates of other unicorn startups to go public in 2019, Casper, once it begins trading, will have one class of stock rather than multiple-share-class structures that concern investors, the Journal reported. WeWork, the Journal names as an example, had made the error of handing its executives "outsize control through more powerful stock."
Casper currently has 60 retail stores, with plans for potentially "more than" 200 locations in North America. The company announced in August of 2018 that it planned to open 200 stores across the area.
