Online mattress startup Simba closes £40 million investment round

Simba raises £40 million 'Series B' investment, led by VC Atami Capital.
Forecasting revenue of £41 million this year and £167 million next year.

LONDON — Online mattress retailer Simba has closed a £40 million investment round.

Simba announced the fundraising on Monday, led by new investor Atami Capital. Existing investors Lombard Odier, Wharton Asset Management, and Saracens Rugby Club chairman Nigel Wray also took part.

Business Insider reported exclusively in July that Simba had raised £13.2 million as "part of a much larger raise." Launched in February 2016, Simba has now raised a total of £58.5 million.

London-headquartered Simba manufactures hybrid memory foam mattresses and ships them in vacuum compressed boxes. The cheapest bed starts from £399 for a single and Real Madrid football star Gareth Bale advertises the brand's products. Most sales come through its website but the company also has a partnership with upmarket department store John Lewis in the UK.

Simba said in Monday's statement that it is forecasting revenue of £41 million for 2017 and £167 million in 2018. Both figures are slight downgrades on forecasts in an investor deck prepared at the start of the year, seen by Business Insider.

The company said the fresh investment would be used for product development. CEO and co-founder James Cox said in a statement: "This fourth-round investment ensures innovation remains at the core of our business ethos and aligns with our global momentum.

"By the end of 2017, we will have a presence in over twenty global retail outlets and will have achieved 350% YoY revenue growth. We’re also on course for profitability in our core markets in early 2018 as well as exponential growth in the large £10 billion US and £11 billion Asian markets."

Simba is one of a number of mattress startups which have sprung up across the US and Europe over the last few year. All of them manufacture a limited number of mattresses, sell them online, and ship them in compressed boxes, thus making them more cost efficient to send.

The first and most successful of these online mattress startups was Casper in the US. The startup has reportedly been valued at over $1 billion and counts the Hollywood stars such as Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio among its investors.

Aside from Casper, Simba faces competition from the likes of Tuft and Spring, Leesa, and Eve, another British startup that floated on the stock market in May with a valuation of £140 million.

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