Venture: The Growing Sleep Tech Industry
Kinga Cichewicz
We have all heard the advocacy from the health community to get more sleep as the benefits of a good night sleep are worth the extra hour or two of rest. However, some of us, even though they we try our hardest, just cannot fall asleep. A 2016 study by the CDC shows that one out of every three adults does not get enough sleep at night. Lifestyle changes, stress and anxiety contribute to the loss of rest. So, the push to get more sleep is all well and good, but what about those who just cannot manage? Wellness companies such as Calm or Headspace offer healthy and practical meditations to its users to help the relax throughout the workday and get ready for bed. However, for many people with insomnia, they need something more than someone telling them a bedtime story. The growing sleep tech industry is racing to provide an answer.
From techy sleep masks to vibrating pillows, the sleep tech industry has hundreds of different options for people who suffer from insomnia and sleep anxiety. For instance, DreamOn, a Brooklyn-based startup shaping the way people track their sleep, offers a non-pharmaceutical approach to manage insomnia. With their sleep wearable technology, users feel low-wave pulses from the device that guides their minds to rest and gets them ready for sleep. In addition, their sleep wearable pairs with their app that monitors sleep patterns and recommends sleep tips based on personalized data. There are also sleep meditations to listen to throughout the day or before bedtime.
But, just how profitable is the Sleep tech industry? According to a research study, in 2017, the sleep industry was valued at $28.6 billion and some estimates have it over $30 billion in 2019. Experts believe that this industry is not going anywhere anytime soon. Until there is a cure for sleep anxiety or insomnia, which is highly unlikely, alternative remedies to sleep will continue to grow. If people are unable to fall asleep and stay asleep, they will look for other means and they will do so quickly. For example, a friend of mine suffers from extreme insomnia to the point where he sleeps about 15 hours a week. He took melatonin for two months and nothing got better. So, he tried drinking hot tea and listening to white noise through his headphones. Nothing. He eventually turned to pharmaceutical pain-killers and slowly developed an unhealthy dependency on them. He has since gotten off pain-killers and has restarted the search for ways to help him sleep. As long as there are still people who suffer from insomnia and sleep anxiety, the Sleep tech industry will be a viable and profitable market.
As the opioid epidemic continues to devastate most of the country, Americans are turning away from pharmaceutical approaches to sleep and are focusing on more natural sleep remedies with anything non-pharmaceutical. Many sleep tech companies based in Silicon Valley and New York City pride themselves in being non-pharmaceutical and a healthy alternative to get a good night's sleep. Ebb Therapeutics, for example, raised $38 million in Series B funding in 2017. Since then, they have released their cooling sleep masks that returns an 80 percent approval rating for its customers saying they fall asleep quicker, have better sleep quality, and wake up feeling more alert in the morning. Another sleep tech company to be on the lookout for this year is Dreem, a sleep headband that helps you fall asleep quicker and stay asleep longer. Last year they received $35 million in funding led by Johnson & Johnson and plan on making their product more accessible to people across the world, making their product more discrete, and continue to try to lead the sleep tech industry.
The most intriguing fact of this deal is not the $35 million in funding. It’s that Dreem is wanting to make its products more discrete. A complaint about the products in the sleep tech industry is that they are clunky and non-discrete. A measurement of discreteness is asking “Would this look weird on me if I was on a plane?” For the majority of sleep tech products, most of which go on the face or head, the answer is yes. But, discrete products already exist in the sleep tech industry. Companies like Oura, Doppel, and DreamOn all provide products that look like accessories that you would wear around town. If more companies like Dreem or Beddr, a sleep tracking sticker, provided a more discrete product, their business could see a large increase in sales. No one wants to walk around with a non-discrete sleep product that looks like you’re having tests run by scientists.
As more and more people suffer from sleep anxiety and insomnia so the sleep tech industry grows. People will always have sleep problems due to internal and external factors. It’s the job of the sleep tech industry to notice those issues, find solutions, and offer a product that can be worn without feeling self-conscious about how you look. These steps are being taken by some of the leaders in the sleep tech industry and investors need to be ready for big changes to how people view and experience sleep.