Sheela Foam is India’s largest maker of polyurethane (PU) foam - the cushioning material inside mattresses, car seats and furniture - and the company behind two of the country’s most recognised mattress brands, Sleepwell and Kurlon. It began in 1971 when Mrs Sheela Gautam set up a foam plant in Sahibabad, Uttar Pradesh, and over five decades expanded first into consumer branding with the launch of Sleepwell in 1994, then overseas with the acquisition of Australia’s Joyce Foam in 2005 and Spain’s Interplasp in 2019, and most recently into a multi-brand powerhouse by buying the 70-year-old Kurlon business in 2023. The thread that runs through every stage is a fully integrated model - the company makes its own foam, designs its own products, controls its own brands and runs its own distribution, so it captures value at every step from the chemical tank to the customer’s bedroom.
Business segments
A single integrated engine with three reinforcing layers - the foam that everything else is made from, the mattress brands that consumers know, and the distribution network that connects the two - plus two younger bets in furniture rental and enterprise software, each built on the foam core.
1. PU foam manufacturing: the raw material engine that feeds everything else
Sheela Foam makes the polyurethane foam that goes into its own mattresses and also sells it to carmakers, furniture manufacturers and railways - backward integration is the structural cost advantage.
- Makes the core input in-house - the company produces flexible PU foam across three categories: comfort foam for mattresses and furniture, furniture cushioning for seating, and technical foam for industrial uses, with standalone India volumes of 54,088 tonnes in FY26.
- Technical foam opens industrial doors - engineered foams go into automotive interiors (seat covers, sound absorption, headliners), filtration systems, sportswear lamination, acoustic panels for theatres and recording studios, and Indian Railways coaches, where orders are ramping up and guidelines state 70% should go to PU foam.
- Proprietary manufacturing that wastes less - the company pioneered Variable Pressure Foaming (VPF) in India, a process that produces more uniform foam with less material wastage and allows the foam to be compressed further for cheaper transport; a dedicated 10,000-tonne VPF plant now runs in Maneri, Madhya Pradesh.
- Post-merger consolidation cut costs - after absorbing Kurlon, the company shrank its Indian plant count from 21 to 12, unified supplier networks for bulk procurement of polyol and TDI, and switched to its own high-yield foam recipes, lifting output by roughly 10% and reducing waste.
2. Mattresses and home comfort: the consumer brands the country sleeps on
Two national brands - Sleepwell in the premium tier and Kurlon in the mass market - together hold over 30% of India’s branded mattress segment, with a product ladder that stretches from a ₹3,000 economy mattress to a ₹1-lakh-plus luxury bed.
- Sleepwell is the flagship, Kurlon is the mass-market anchor - Sleepwell, launched in 1994, built its name on the promise of “Maa Jaisa Aaram” and competes in the aspirational and premium tiers; Kurlon, acquired in 2023, brings over 60 years of trust among more than 10 million families and dominates rubberised coir mattresses in southern and eastern India.
- Technology embedded in the product - proprietary features include Neem Fresche (a neem-based germ protection certified by the US Environmental Protection Agency that works against dust mites and bacteria for years), Comfort Cell cores that reduce partner disturbance, and RFID chips sewn into mattresses so customers can verify a genuine product.
- Pillows and protectors extend the basket - the home comfort range includes pillows (a focused growth category), mattress protectors, bolsters, comforters and sofa-cum-beds, so a customer who buys a mattress can keep buying from the same brand.
- A mission to convert unbranded buyers - the Unorganised-to-Organised (U2O) initiative sells mattresses under the Tarang and Aaram names in semi-urban and rural markets, reaching over 5,000 towns through 8,400 dealers and 230 distributors who operate like an FMCG network with vans servicing tehsil-level shops.
3. Distribution network: the physical and digital pipes that reach 11,000 touchpoints
The company moves mattresses through branded showrooms, small-town dealers, e-commerce platforms and exports to 25 countries - a multi-channel setup designed so that wherever an Indian consumer shops, a Sleepwell or Kurlon product is within reach.
- Branded showrooms doubled as experience centres - roughly 5,500 exclusive outlets across India, with 600 net new stores added in FY26 alone, plus a growing number of company-owned stores that let the company test retail formats directly.
- E-commerce is the fastest-growing channel - sales through the company’s own websites grew 136% year-on-year in FY26, while marketplace sales on Amazon and Flipkart rose 39%; the online-only SleepX brand was folded into Sleepwell to simplify the digital offer.
- Exports and Gulf presence add geographic spread - products reach 25 countries, with a trading subsidiary in Dubai running six exclusive brand outlets and seven multi-brand stores in the UAE as of mid-2025, supported by local manufacturing partnerships.
- Distributor relationships measured in decades - most distributors have been with the company for more than 20 years, and exclusive dealers are located close to manufacturing plants to keep transport costs and product damage low.
4. International manufacturing: Australia’s largest foam producer and a low-cost Spanish export base
Two wholly owned subsidiaries - Joyce Foam in Australia and Interplasp in Spain - give the group a diversified production footprint and access to developed-market customers on a B2B supply model.
- Joyce Foam commands roughly 40% of the Australian PU foam market - acquired in 2005, it runs six plants across Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Sydney with 17,000 tonnes of annual capacity, supplying foam to branded mattress makers and industrial buyers on quarterly pricing contracts that lock in raw material costs three months ahead.
- Interplasp is a European manufacturing foothold with US export reach - the Spanish plant in Yecla, acquired in 2019, has 22,000 tonnes of capacity and exports “bed-in-a-box” mattresses to the United States, taking advantage of trade restrictions on other supplying countries.
- The Spanish acquisition also brought technology - Interplasp gave the group exclusive rights to variable pressure foaming technology, which now underpins manufacturing in India as well.
5. New-age businesses: furniture rental and enterprise software, anchored to the foam core
Furlenco rents furniture to over 1.7 lakh subscribers across 30 cities, while Staqo sells the enterprise IT platform that runs the group to 570 external clients - both are adjacent bets that use the parent’s foam, customers or capabilities.
- Furlenco turns furniture into a subscription - the tech-driven platform designs, rents and sells furniture on an asset-backed model, reached full-year profitability in FY25, and gives Sheela Foam a route into the ₹1-lakh-crore branded furniture market while also consuming its foam as a raw material input.
- Integrated stores cross-sell mattresses and furniture - over 40 stores already offer both Sheela Foam products and Furlenco furniture, with a target to exceed 100, creating a single destination for sleep and living-room purchases.
- Staqo started as the in-house IT department and now sells outside - its Presence360 platform covers HR, finance, supply chain, manufacturing and CRM in over 30 integrated modules, serving 570-plus clients across the public sector, MSMEs and private enterprises while still giving the group a cost advantage on its own IT needs.
Group structure and partners
The listed parent sits atop a consolidated group of five wholly owned subsidiaries and four step-down subsidiaries, reshaped by a series of mergers that brought Kurlon and all its sub-brands directly into Sheela Foam Ltd.
- Kurlon was fully absorbed in 2026 - acquired in October 2023 with a 94.66% stake for approximately ₹2,035 crore, Kurlon Enterprise Limited and five of its subsidiaries were amalgamated into Sheela Foam under an NCLT-approved scheme effective January 2026, with Kurlon shareholders receiving 52 Sheela Foam shares for every 100 they held.
- International subsidiaries are held through a Spanish intermediate entity - Joyce Foam in Australia and Interplasp in Spain both sit under International Foam Technologies Spain, S.L.U., while a Dubai trading subsidiary (Sheela Foam Trading LLC) was incorporated in 2023 to supply the UAE market.
- Furlenco is an associate, not a subsidiary - the group’s stake in House of Kieraya Ltd stood at 34.53% as of March 2026, diluted from 43.89% after Furlenco issued fresh shares.
- The Sleepwell Foundation runs the social side - operating for over 25 years, it focuses on emotional wellness campaigns and runs a skill-development centre in Khurja, Uttar Pradesh, that has trained more than 12,500 young people in areas from paramedical care to software development.
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