Sleep disorders affect one in three adults worldwide. Many tracking methods are fragmented, and treatments often focus on symptoms rather than root causes such as circadian disruption, hot flashes, or apnea. This limits recovery for athletes, executives, and everyday users.
Eight Sleep tackles this with its Pod smart mattress, which offers dynamic temperature and elevation control, along with biometric sensing such as HRV and sleep stages. Clinical studies show it reduces menopausal symptoms by 56% and helps restore natural rhythms.
Now, with Tether leading the latest round, Eight Sleep is valued at $1.5B and gearing up for the next chapter: predictive AI health. After hitting positive free cash flow in 2025 and rolling out Pod 5, Pillow, and Thermal across 34 countries, this new funding will fuel more AI research, FDA approvals, and clinical trials.
Turning bedrooms into proactive health hubs
Eight Sleep was founded in 2014 by Matteo Franceschetti, Massimo Andreasi Bassi, and Alexandra Zatarain. They started in a NYC dorm to solve Franceschetti’s own sleep problems and realised the mattress could be a perfect biosensor.
Alexandra Zatarain, co-founder and VP of Brand and Marketing of Eight Sleep, shares with TFN, “Eight Sleep was born from a mix of personal curiosity and a clear market need. The founders had long been passionate about performance, recovery, and health, and were struck by how little innovation had gone into sleep, even though people spend about a third of their lives sleeping.”
“This personal interest, combined with the insight that traditional mattresses weren’t addressing common problems like night-time temperature discomfort, pushed the team to build something that could actively improve sleep rather than just track or cushion it. Thousands of early backers pre-ordered their first product on crowdfunding, reinforcing that there was real demand for more advanced sleep technology,” Zatarain adds.
Pod’s AI has tracked over 1 billion sleep hours across 35 countries, adjusting temperature (from -6°C to +46°C), elevation, and soon vibration based on sleep stages and HRV. A new predictive agent tests scenarios such as late workouts or caffeine use to help improve pre-bed routines. Pilot studies show 50% of users follow these daytime insights. The company is also working on FDA approval for apnea detection.
“Eight Sleep’s flagship products centre around smart, data-driven sleep optimisation. The Pod and related systems use dynamic temperature regulation, embedded biometric sensors, and machine learning to both track how someone sleeps and adjust their sleep environment in real time, for example, warming or cooling each side of the bed based on personal needs throughout the night,” elaborates Zatarain.
What sets Pod apart is its edge AI that doesn’t rely on the cloud, peer-reviewed clinical validation, and a fully integrated hardware-software design, unlike wearables. Unlike the Oura Ring, Sleep Number, or Whoop, Pod reacts automatically to your body’s data on a large scale.
What about diversity, and what’s it like being female in tech?
On diversity, Zatarain adds, “We have never hired to meet a quota. We hire people who are obsessed with solving a problem that affects every human being on the planet: sleep. When you start with a problem that universal, you naturally attract people from every background. The founding DNA of this company set the tone for everything that followed.”
On being female in tech, Zatarain shares, “What I have learned is straightforward: do not wait for the industry to make room for you. Build something that demands attention on its own merits. When we were raising our first round, 99 investors said no. That was not a gender problem. That was a startup problem. But I do think women face an additional layer of proving they belong, and the best response is to let the work and the results speak louder than any bias.”
“My advice to women entering or growing in tech: optimise for learning, not comfort. Surround yourself with people who challenge your thinking, not just validate it. Having co-founders who pushed me to be sharper made all the difference. And do not be afraid to lead with conviction. The best founders I know, men and women, are the ones who are willing to be wrong loudly and correct quickly,” she adds.
So, what’s next?
This new round will fast-track predictive models, shifting from reactive fixes to proactive pre-sleep care. It’s also about getting FDA approval for apnea screening and treatment, plus expanding trials to validate heart health and longevity markers.
And yes, global partnerships are in the mix, including F1 ’s Leclerc, who is pushing for a new wave of health tech powered by large-scale passive monitoring.
Zatarain concludes, “We are building a predictive AI agent that simulates thousands of scenarios before you even get into bed. It factors in your activity, your stress, what you ate, your environment, and optimises everything preemptively. The system will know what your body needs before you do.”
