Matteo Franceschetti is the Co-founder and CEO of Eight Sleep.

Eight Sleep created one of the original breakout consumer health products in 2014, quietly building a business that’s raised over $300 million dollars and was reportedly free cash flow positive in the first half of 2025.

But things weren’t always easy, and Matteo shares the challenges of starting a hardware company, why hardware has stronger moats, and the fundraising mindset he adopted that eventually got Khosla Ventures and Founders Fund to invest.

We also get into the importance of sleep, how the company’s Sleep Butler uses AI to help you sleep better, and the big opportunity building more consumer health products.

Thanks to Numeral for supporting this episode. It’s the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try it here: ⁠https://www.numeral.com⁠

Timestamps:

(2:18) Three pillars of health: sleep, nutrition, fitness

(4:02) Creating a sleep routine

(6:59) Importance of body temperature in sleep

(8:43) How Eight Sleep works

(12:14) Using AI to help you sleep

(18:35) The AWS outage

(24:12) It’s too hard to build in Europe

(28:09) Why hardware has stronger moats

(32:23) How to fundraise for a hardware company

(35:30) The opportunity in Sleep tech

(38:43) Hiring is easy when you have a mission

(40:37) How to fight jet lag

(43:03) Opportunities in women’s health

(45:54) Evolving from single purchase to subscription model

(47:12) Matteo’s personal health stack

(49:41) Racing sports cars

Referenced

Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/

Compliant VC Meme Account: https://x.com/compliantvc

Follow Matteo

Twitter: https://x.com/m_franceschetti

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matteofranceschetti/

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