How a founder’s search for relief from back pain led to a technology-led mattress brand
The idea for The Sleep Company emerged from a problem co-founder Priyanka Salot was trying to solve for herself. During pregnancy, she struggled with back pain, insomnia and other sleep-related issues. Her search for a suitable mattress led her to question whether the products available in the market were addressing the needs of consumers. Memory foam was widely available, but it was not delivering the combination of comfort and support she was looking for.
Could a material adapt to the body rather than force the body to adjust to the mattress? That question became the starting point for the company. Salot, an IIM Calcutta MBA graduate who had spent eight years at Procter & Gamble, decided to explore the problem beyond the available products. Along with her husband and co-founder, Harshil Salot, she spent two years developing SmartGRID, a patented Japanese comfort technology built around a hyper-elastic, polymer-based grid structure.
The process involved repeated experimentation, including months spent at a factory in Gujarat working with Dr Tripathi, a former DRDO scientist, on different materials and formulations. “We were looking for something that could provide the right balance of softness, support and breathability. SmartGRID was the result of that relentless experimentation,” Priyanka said. The search also involved studying how the mattress business operated.
The founders visited stores in India and overseas, tried different products, and spoke to consumers and retailers. They found that the factors influencing consumer choices did not always align with the priorities of the trade. While buyers wanted comfort, support and better sleep, the business often revolved around margins, pricing and credit periods. “We spend nearly a third of our lives sleeping, yet we found that the things that mattered most to consumers were often very different from what drove the mattress trade,” she said.
The founders concluded that addressing the gap would require greater control over product development and a business built around consumer needs, rather than competing only on price or distribution. The early operation was small, producing just three mattresses a day, which the founders packed themselves. Their first office was a modest room in Mumbai, with little infrastructure to support the ambition.
“It was so small that we always worried about how we fit our team here,” Priyanka recalled. The company’s first two employees, who worked in technology and customer relationship management, remain with it. Building the business also required personal adjustments. Priyanka was raising a toddler while trying to establish the venture, and credits the support of her family, particularly her mother-in-law, who offered to look after her son so she could focus on the business.
The company initially relied entirely on its own resources, concentrating on proving the product and understanding customer response before seeking external capital. By January 2021, the founders were ready to bring in an investor. An introduction through friends led them to Fireside Ventures, and the deal was closed within two months. The investment marked a shift from validating the product to building a larger business.
The company has since raised a total of `854.4 crore, with backing from investors including Premji Invest, ChrysCapital and 360 ONE Invest. The Mumbai-based company reported revenue of Rs 770 crore in FY26, up from Rs 500 crore in FY25. It has expanded its presence to more than 200 stores and moved beyond mattresses into sofas, recliners, massagers, desks and other comfort-related products. The expansion broadens its addressable market, but also tests whether the original technology-led proposition can translate into categories with different consumer expectations and competitive dynamics.
The company’s positioning rests on combining product innovation with a growing retail presence, rather than remaining a specialist mattress maker. “SmartGRID, our patented technology, was the foundation of The Sleep Company and that focus on technology has remained constant as we expand to other categories,” she said. What began as an attempt to address a personal problem has therefore become the basis for a wider consumer business.
The challenge now is to sustain that differentiation as the company grows across products and stores, while ensuring that expansion does not dilute the original focus on comfort and customer needs. The next phase will depend on how effectively The Sleep Company can scale its retail network and newer categories while retaining the product differentiation that shaped its early growth. Its ability to translate technology into a consistent consumer experience across price points will be central to sustaining growth as competition intensifies.
