DUSQ, a sleep science and recovery startup, has raised ₹24 crore in seed funding, led by Fireside Ventures. Additionally, the round saw participation from Antler India, Climber Capital, Startup Sherpas, Vaishav Investments, Avnish Anand, and Shivam Puri.
The company plans to deploy the capital to scale what it describes as the world’s first sleep regulation platform, while simultaneously expanding its neuroscience and hardware teams, strengthening intellectual property development, upgrading its fully equipped in-house sleep laboratory, and preparing for a U.S. market launch within the rapidly growing global sleep economy.
Notably, while most of the sleep-tech market focuses on wearables that generate sleep scores and dashboards, DUSQ positions itself as a regulation-first company. More importantly, the company operates on a core hypothesis that modern sleep failure stems from brain–body desynchrony, and therefore, true recovery demands biological regulation rather than passive tracking.
DUSQ’s evolution traces back to InnerGize, a stress-focused wearable that gained nationwide attention through Shark Tank India. Although early adoption validated strong consumer interest, the experience revealed a deeper insight—stress often appears as a symptom, while sleep dysfunction forms the root cause. Consequently, over two years of research, the team analyzed more than 50 million physiological data points to develop a regulation model that links autonomic signaling with neural downshifting, addressing fragmented recovery at a biological level.
Instead of scaling prematurely, the company deliberately chose to pause and invest in long-horizon scientific research. As a result, this phase led to a complete rebrand into DUSQ—a company founded on the belief that sleep functions as a biological process requiring regulation, not mere measurement.
Over the past year, DUSQ has actively conducted structured clinical trials inside its proprietary sleep laboratory. During this period, the team tested autonomic recovery pathways under controlled conditions, and early findings demonstrate the platform’s ability to support sustained recovery cycles and stabilize uninterrupted sleep patterns. Therefore, the company has shifted its focus from simply observing rest to actively enabling recovery.
Commenting on the journey, Dr. Siddhant Bhargava, co-founder of DUSQ, said, “InnerGize gave us proof of consumer trust, but DUSQ is what happens when you build for the long term. We believe the next frontier of health tech is not more data—it’s restored biological function. We’re not building another tracker; we’re building infrastructure for human recovery. This funding allows us to take an India-built deep-science product into global markets with confidence.”
Meanwhile, Ankur Khaitan, Principal at Fireside Ventures, added, “Sleep is emerging as one of the most important health frontiers globally. What stood out for us about DUSQ was the team’s willingness to rethink the problem and build with genuine scientific depth and clear differentiation from day one. With a launch-ready product and strong IP foundation, we believe it can define the global sleep solutions category.”
Importantly, the ₹24 crore seed round also marks a pivotal moment for India’s med-tech ecosystem. Historically, U.S. and European companies have dominated the global sleep technology market. Therefore, institutional backing for a deep-science platform at this early stage signals growing investor confidence that globally competitive health technology can emerge from India. As DUSQ advances toward its U.S. launch, the company is actively reframing the global narrative—from sleep optimization to true sleep restoration.
