Abingdon's Barkby announces Mammoth licensing deal for its sleep subsidiary

By Giles Gwinnett

20 September 2023

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Abingdon-based Barkby Group has revealed that its subsidiary Cambridge Sleep Sciences (CSS) has struck a five year licensing deal with Mammoth International (MIL), enabling the latter to manufacture a smart mattress using CSS's SleepEngine platform.

Mammoth International is a new UK based subsidiary of Mammoth Comfort Group and the new Smart Mattress product line will be launched at the end of this month with manufacturing starting within six months. Around 5,000 mattresses are expected to be produced in the year following launch.

For each CSS-enabled mattress produced, CSS will receive a royalty of £75 per single and £150 per double.

In a statement, Dr Julian Stone, the CEO of CSS, told investors: "We're delighted to be working with Mammoth, helping it to enhance its product range with a new Smart Mattress.

"Mammoth has strong credentials, particularly in specialist health and sport mattresses and our technology is a natural extension of their design ethos."

Last week, it was reported that Barkby was exploring options to maximise shareholder value from its CSS subsidiary and has appointed advisers to undertake a strategic review.

Charles Dickson, Barkby's executive chairman, had said: "We are delighted with the progress made by CSS over the last three years. The market opportunity for its technologies is clearly significant and we look forward to providing further updates on CSS's progress in due course.

"We expect CSS to become a significant business in its own right and the purpose of the strategic review is to evaluate the most appropriate corporate setting and structure for the company to allow it to develop its full potential as well as what is in the best interests of Barkby's shareholders."

Barkby is now a roadside real estate business focused on building and scaling a high-quality portfolio of modern, ESG-compliant assets. It is in the process of exiting its non-core investments.

Last month, it announced that it had disposed of Workshop Trading Holdings, trading under the Workshop Coffee brand, via a management buyout (MBO).

Meanwhile, CSS' unique SleepEngine technology has been developed and refined for over a decade. It produces sounds which emulate the waves created by the brain during sleep cycles.

The company said CSS remained in "advanced negotiations with several household names" on a number of new multi-year enterprise licensing deals for the technology and further announcements would be made as "soon as practicable".

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By Giles Gwinnett

Giles Gwinnett is a writer at The Business Magazine. He has been a journalist for more than 20 years and covered a vast array of topics at a range of media settings - in print and online. After his NCTJ newspaper training, he became a reporter in Hampshire before moving to a news agency in Gloucestershire. In recent years, he has been covering the financial markets along with company news for an investor-focused web portal. His many interests include politics, energy and the environment. He lives in Dorset.