Lost its spring
It’s been 12 years since the bed-in-a-box startup disrupted traditional mattress retail. While not the first to pioneer DTC mattresses, Casper led on marketing and quickly scaled the concept into a go-to brand for millennial homebuyers.
But the company lost its spring. What began as a DTC start-up later turned to third-party distributors, with rollouts at Pottery Barn, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Nordstrom to drive growth. The not-yet-profitable company then went public in 2020 at $13 a share to offset high marketing costs and losses while funding its expansion.
After the share price dipped to $5, Casper returned to private ownership under equity investors, eventually selling to major polyurethane foam manufacturer Carpenter Co. in November 2024, with Casper operating as a subsidiary.
The entire mattress category has struggled post-pandemic. Between 2021 and 2024, domestic mattress shipments in the U.S. dropped from 26.3 million units to 19.2 million, according to the International Sleep Products Association. On the upside, U.S. mattress production and sales reportedly began recovering in the second half of 2025, driven by lower import levels and tariff boosts.
