| ● Level 5 · Wed, May 13 | 5 min read |
Level 5: The $1.5B Bed
The latest and greatest from inside the community.
Consumer brands, wellness, human performance.
| From Bill Murphy | Vol. II · No. 5 |
The principle this week Sleep is for the wea-pons (Be a weapon) |
Tether just backed Eight Sleep at $1.5 billion. Recovery is infrastructure now.
When crypto money (I thought that was dead tbh) shows up in a mattress company, it's not a wellness bet. It's an infrastructure bet. The sleep economy just got a category-defining moment and most operators are still treating it like a niche. I've been diving into this...
| 01 | From the Desk A quick word before we dig in. |
| 02 | What's Happening Function acquires SuppCo, Eight Sleep closes at $1, Wellness Real Estate projected to hit $1, +1 more |
| 03 | Community Spotlight Bloom with Greg LaVecchia |
| 04 | On the Calendar SKU Spring '26 Showcase • +1 more |
From the Desk | 01 / 07 |
A quick word before we dig in.
My last HYROX in Houston, I PR'd. Not because I trained harder. The training was honestly nothing special. I went in fitter than usual, sure, but the week before the race I did something different. I recovered like it was the actual job. “The room you train in matters less than the room you sleep in.” Mouth tape on. Nasal strips in. Blue light glasses on at 8pm. Silk sleep mask. Loftie clock pulling me out of REM at the right point. Eight hours, every night (well... most nights), the full week. I felt fantastic on race day. I keep thinking about Matt Hassett, founder of Loftie. He was at Wellness House this year and pitched Loftie and got ROASTED by our comedian panel (he crushed it thought). For those that don't know, Loftie is a bedside clock. It also kept me out of my phone for a few months leading up to that HYROX race. Most decisions don't get attributed to a $200 clock and a $30 sheet of mouth tape, but mine did. The room you train in matters less than the room you sleep in. Never thought I would say that... but i've been thinking about it a lot lately. Now let's get into it.
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Recovery Is Infrastructure Now
Three years of Willpower has taught me one thing about the founders who consistently outperform. They recover better. Sleep, movement, actual data. The boring fundamentals.
Now you're seeing it everyone in the market... and its hard to ignore. Eight Sleep closed at $1.5B backed by Tether, a crypto infrastructure firm with no wellness history. Function acquired SuppCo, turning the diagnostic-to-supplement layer into one company. Wellness real estate is now forecast to hit $1.8 trillion by 2030. Three signals from one week, same directional bet.
If you're building in wellness, fitness, or human performance, this is the week to ask honestly: are you selling a product, or building an infrastructure layer? The brands answering "infrastructure" are the ones getting written the big money. Insaneeeee
What's Happening | 02 / 07 |
Signals from the wellness frontier.
Not every headline. The ones I'd actually bring up at dinner.
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Wellness Lounge | 03 / 07 |
Wellness Lounge.
Three operators, one night, between sauna sets. May 20 at Remedy Place Soho. 80 seats. Doors close when the room fills.
Leila Francis · SVP, Customer Insights & Membership Experience · AG1Built the side of AG1 that turns a $79/month green powder into a brand members defend. The customer is the product roadmap. Experience as moat. Hold my spot → |
Ahmed Iqbal · Chief Marketing Officer · Cadillac Formula 1 TeamHiring 20-30 people a week. Drivers from Finland, Mexico, China. The most interesting brand build happening in the US right now. American ingenuity, built from scratch. Hold my spot → |
Becca McCarthy · Co-Founder, President & COO · EvolvWriting the next chapter of GLP-1. Brand-first, clinical-grade, built to outlast the trend cycle. The brand serious clinicians refer to in the most contested category in consumer health. Hold my spot → |
Community Spotlight | 04 / 07 |
The member brand I can't stop talking about.
 Member Brand · Since 2024  “Let the creators create. That's the playbook.
The take Greg Lavecchia and Mari Llewellyn bootstrapped Bloom Nutrition to nine figures by handing the marketing to 5,600 creator partners. 12 billion TikTok views. 75% of brand spend on creators. Nutrabolt took a majority stake last year and the playbook is still theirs.  |
On the Calendar | 06 / 07 |
Where to be in the room next.
Two of ours and two worth your flight. Doors close when they close.
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This Week In My Stack | 07 / 07 |
This week in my stack.
The recovery stack that took 90 seconds off my HYROX time:
 Dream Recovery Sleep performance kit The full lineup: Dream Tape (mouth tape), Second Wind Nasal Strips, Performance Silk Sleep Mask, Blue Light Glasses. $30 of mouth tape changes your morning HRV more than $1,500 of supplements ever will. Todd Anderson's team is on a tear. Visit → |
 Willpower Recovery KANEs Willpower × KANE Footwear Special-edition recovery shoes we made with KANE for Wellness House this year. Yes, I'm wearing my own merch. No, I don't apologize for it. The foam is real. Visit → |
Two moves this week. Pick the one that fits.
If you're pre-seed CPG: SKU's Fall '26 Track closes applications June 1. 12-week accelerator in Austin. The SKU team showed up for Wellness House this year, which is why I'm calling it out. Apply →
If you're past raise: stand up one recovery input you've been ignoring this week. Sleep tracking. A Function bloodwork panel. A WHOOP baseline. One, not three. You can't bet on infrastructure (see the thesis above) without owning the signal data underneath it.
We're hiring our first operator.
Hiring our first full-time operator. Ships product, runs events, sells sponsorship. If you've been a #2 to a founder, read more and apply.
Apply on LinkedIn →That's the room for this week. See you in the next one.
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