You\u2019ve likely never heard of this company if you live inside the Bay Area bubble, but Purple, a totally bootstrapped mattress startup is using toxin-free, patented technology for a pressureless night\u2019s sleep and could become the first of the mattress unicorns.<\/p>\n
Nearly a thousand miles away from Silicon Valley and just west of Utah\u2019s Great Salt Lake, in practically the middle of nowhere, is the tranquil cow town of Grantsville, population 9,617<\/a>. It is there, in a warehouse the size of a combined eight Walmarts, you\u2019ll find Purple<\/a>, a direct-to-consumer mattress startup, hard at work prepping hundreds of thousands of pillows, powerbases and of course, mattresses, for shipment.<\/p>\n The company started out a decade ago in the wheelchair business. It was making a patented cushioning technology to prevent bedsores for those sitting all day. But founders,\u00a0brothers Tony and Terry Pearce noted a shift in the mattress space. It was headed online and a bunch of startups like Casper, Tuft and Needle, Leesa and others were starting to pop up. So the pair decided three years ago to capitalize on the trend by using the same technology in the wheelchair cushioning to make their own bedding.<\/p>\n