Casper

DTC mattressUSA

New to Unitard

🤝 Acquired

Peak $1.1 BillionToday

~-73%

from peak

🦄
Became a unicorn
2019
📈
Peak valuation
$1.1 Billion ’19
💔
Became a Unitard
Feb 2020
💸
Last valuation
~$297M

Current status

IPO $744M; taken private by Durational Capital ~$300M (2021)

The rise & fall

6 moments · 2014–2023

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

2014

Founded as the bed-in-a-box

Five founders launch a mattress that ships compressed in a box — and mint the DTC playbook a hundred imitators copy.

Wikipedia

2019

The peak: a $1.1B “sleep economy”$1.1B

One last private round values the mattress brand at ~$1.1B as it preps for Wall Street.

CNBC

Feb 2020

Slips out of the club at the IPO

Wall Street's verdict on the sleep economy: roughly $744M — sharply below the private mark, with losses still piling up.

CNN

Nov 2021

Taken private by Durational for ~$300M$300M

Less than two years after listing, persistent losses end the public run at about a quarter of the unicorn peak.

CNBC

2021–23

From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2021–23

Employees watched the shine wear off: Glassdoor reviews from the take-private years described marketing and store expansion that outran revenue, constant restructuring and management churn, successive layoff rounds, and perks quietly pared back under the new owners.

💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

Casper was a U.S. direct-to-consumer mattress brand that reached a ~$1.1B valuation in 2019. Its 2020 IPO priced sharply below that, raising about $744M at a reduced valuation, and persistent losses led private equity firm Durational Capital Management to take it private in 2021 for roughly $300M — far below its unicorn peak.

Source: CNN/CNBC