Tether has led a $50 million strategic investment round in sleep technology startup Eight Sleep, aiming to help the company integrate artificial intelligence agents into its sleep-focused products.
The funding round, announced Tuesday, values Eight Sleep at $1.5 billion and comes after the company raised $100 million in August last year. Eight Sleep develops sleep health products, primarily focused on bedding technology and related wellness solutions.
In a statement, Tether said it sees strong potential in health technology that supports “longevity, performance and disease prevention,” and plans to collaborate with Eight Sleep to bring AI-powered health technology products to market.
The stablecoin issuer has increasingly used its growing capital reserves to invest beyond the crypto sector. Its portfolio now includes ventures in gold, media, biotechnology and artificial intelligence, and the company has also made several attempts to acquire professional football clubs.
“Technologies that can convert continuous health data into clear, practical insights will play a key role in shaping the future of consumer health and wellness,” Tether said.
The company added that the investment aims to strengthen its collaboration with Eight Sleep to develop advanced AI-driven health technology. According to Tether, the partnership will utilize its QVAC architecture and edge intelligence capabilities to enhance Eight Sleep’s products.
Tether’s QVAC platform, launched in December, is a privacy-focused health technology service that allows users to integrate biological health data from multiple devices and services — such as smart rings — into a single platform. The system uses on-device artificial intelligence to help users manage their data and gain health insights.
Eight Sleep has said it plans to develop a sleep-focused AI agent to support its Pod product, a sleep technology system that automatically adjusts bed temperature, elevation and sound based on metrics such as heart rate, breathing patterns, snoring, time asleep and sleep stages.
The Pod already includes AI-based tools that track sleep health data, but the company said the new funding will help expand and improve its current AI capabilities.
As part of Tether’s announcement, Matteo Franceschetti, co-founder and CEO of Eight Sleep, said the partnership will help extend the company’s AI-driven health technology beyond its existing products.
“We’ve built the most seamless AI-powered health sensing system in the world, and this partnership with Tether gives us the infrastructure to take that intelligence beyond the Pod and into every aspect of personal health,” he said.
In a post on X, Franceschetti added that Eight Sleep is developing a predictive AI agent trained on more than 1 billion hours of sleep data. He also noted that the company is progressing with filings to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for sleep apnea detection technology.
“Passive. Every night. No wires, no clinic visits,” he said.
