revolutionise the way people sleep, according to the business.  “The Emma Motion ensures optimal spinal alignment throughout the entire night, which is one of the single most important drivers of sleep quality,” Manuel Mueller, Emma’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.  Launching this week in France and the Netherlands, Emma Motion will eventually be available in all 26 countries where the brand has a presence through a mix of its own e-commerce sites, as well as retail partners and online marketplaces.  Global growth Founded in 2013 by Mueller and Dr Dennis Schmoltzi, Emma started out as a multi-brand online mattress shop called Dormando. It wasn’t until Mueller and Schmoltzi launched their private-label ‘Emma’ mattress in 2015, tapping into the growing demand for ‘bed-in-a-box’ products, that the business really took off.   The last five years have seen Emma expand across Europe and the UK, enter key overseas markets, such as the US, India and Hong Kong, and launch in Australia, New Zealand and Japan.  Today, the company has an online presence in the top 10 mattress markets in the world and offices in Lisbon, Shanghai and Manila, in addition to its headquarters and R&D lab in Frankfurt, Germany.  The company’s sales have grown rapidly alongside this expansion.  Since breaking even in 2017 with €33.6 million in net revenue, Emma, a private company, has roughly doubled its net revenue every year except 2020 when it grew net revenue by 170 per cent to €405 million. It sold more than 2.2 million mattresses last year, more than any other mattress brand, according to Schmoltzi.  “We outperformed our best case scenario,” he said at an online press event this week, “and we are convinced we’ll maintain this strong growth momentum also for 2021.” Omnichannel  Given the brand’s extensive global footprint, however, that growth will come from increasing market share in its existing markets, rather than entering new markets, going forward.  “We expect to slow our regional expansion and focus on the second element of our expansion strategy, that is growing market share and increasing brand awareness in the existing markets,” Schmoltzi said.  Key to this is Emma’s omnichannel strategy. While many online mattress brands, such as Casper and Koala, have some sort of store presence to help reach those customers that are still reluctant to buy a mattress without testing it in person, regardless how generous the return policy is, few have gone as far as Emma.  The brand has partnerships with roughly 100 retailers worldwide and can be found in over 1,700 shops. These retail partnerships are crucial because while Emma sells direct-to-consumer online, it has no plans to open its own bricks-and-mortar stores. “We will continue to invest into this and expand our B2B business,” Schmoltzi said.  Future of sleep New products are another way Emma plans to grow the business going forward, and the launch of Emma Motion is just the beginning.  Emma is also developing an app that will allow customers to fine tune the adjustments their smart mattress makes. Later on, it might also give customers personalised tips and recommendations based on their sleep patterns. And its researchers are exploring how they might connect lighting to a person’s ‘inner clock’, so their bedroom lights don’t turn on until they’re ready to wake up.  “Like your individual sunrise,” Schmoltzi said.  “We will continue to research and develop technologies to improve people’s sleep across all touchpoints to help people reach their full potential to sleep.”