Kimba Raises $6.5M to Improve Sleep Through AI-Powered Scent Therapy

The startup combines adaptive AI, biometric tracking and personalized scent delivery to improve sleep quality throughout the night without supplements or pharmaceuticals

As one of the foundational pillars of health, it’s no wonder that everyone is diving into sleepmaxxing nowadays.

But outside of the core tips and tricks — keeping your room dark and cold, minimizing blue light before bed, etc. — tech is naturally entering the conversation around sleep optimization, and startup Kimba is betting on it.

The sleep technology company just landed $6.5 million in funding led by Selva Ventures — an investor whose portfolio includes brands such as Grüns and OneSkin — to launch a clinically validated, AI-powered approach to improving sleep through adaptive scent therapy.

Kimba’s tech hinges on the olfactory system, as scent interventions can influence the brain during sleep without causing disruptions or wakefulness to promote deeper, more rejuvenating rest.

“Kimba was built on a simple but powerful idea that sleep shouldn’t just be measured, it should be improved,” said Kimba founder and CEO Ben Fuxbruner. “We’re introducing a fundamentally new approach that uses scent to work with the brain during sleep, helping people achieve deeper, more restorative rest without drugs or disruption. For me, it was life-changing.”

Fuxbruner was inspired to start the company after his own struggles with PTSD and insomnia following a near-death injury as a special forces commander.

As with many wellness brands, the concept leans heavily into personalization. Users begin by completing their individual sleep profile and selecting proprietary water-based and plant-derived scent formulations tailored to their sleep patterns and preferences.

Throughout the night, the Kimba system continuously monitors biometric signals including breathing patterns, movement, heart rate variability and stress indicators through built-in sensors and integrations with wearables including Whoop, Oura, Apple Watch, Fitbit and Garmin. 

The company has taken its tech a step further by integrating adaptive AI to analyze the data in real time and deliver scent cues at key times throughout the night, meant to optimize sleep depth, continuity and recovery. 

Kimba’s non-invasive sleep system is designed to actively improve sleep quality without supplements or dependency on outside sleep aids.

“The influence of sensory input during sleep is significant,” said Dr. Anat Arzi who recently led a study of 50 participants over 48 nights who experienced improvements in sleep quality and cognitive performance with Kimba. “Olfactory stimulation is uniquely beneficial for this because it can influence brain activity without waking the individual. By aligning scent delivery with specific breathing patterns, sleep stages and physiological signals, this approach has the potential to meaningfully improve sleep quality.”

The tech is now available for pre-orders with shipping anticipated to begin in the winter of 2027.

Kimba’s launch arrives as sleep tech continues to take off.

Eight Sleep is powering forward thanks to a $50 million strategic round that valued the company at $1.5 billion, leveraging its AI models trained on more than 1 billion hours of sleep data, while brands including Somnee and NextSense have also raised funding.