Luno Founder Peter Ducato Created a Mattress Made for Car Camping (or Maybe Full Time)

A bad night’s sleep can be just as life-altering as a good one.

Peter Ducato knows this as well as anyone. Co-founder of the Luno brand of specialty car-fitted air mattresses (not to be confused with the unrelated cryptocurrency of the same name), Ducato was inspired nearly a decade ago by a rough camping experience to develop inflatable mattresses fitted for specific vehicle makes, models and years (you can search for yours on the company’s website). WW asked Ducato about whether car camping is real camping, who might get the best use out of Luno’s product, and what really happened on that fateful dark night of the soul.

WW: Which came first: Luno or the cryptocurrency of the same name?

Peter Ducato: Pretty sure the Luno cryptocurrency company came first, but crazy timing, right? We were thinking of a company name in 2018-ish when crypto was just setting its sights on getting big. They were there, and unfortunately we couldn’t get luno.com—which was a big bummer, as you can imagine as a designer, but they were there first.

What does the name Luno mean?

It stemmed from lunar, meaning moon, which led us to luna, which I think was an energy bar at the moment, so we went from luna to luno and made it from there. Luno for us felt more gender neutral, in a way—which, in language, “o” usually denotes more of a male side, but Sarah [Van Berkum, Luno’s co-founder] and I felt like Luno was more gender neutral.

I want to talk about this horrible night’s sleep that led you to where you are today. I hope it’s just ergonomically horrible and there wasn’t something bad happening?

No, we weren’t going through a loss or anything like that, that’s funny to bring up. I was taking solo trips up to go snowboarding, and sleeping in the cold is quite complex, no matter how you’re doing it. I was using my hiking pad that I would take with me backpacking, and I couldn’t really lie fully parallel or get any kind of comfort given how thin the mattress was, so that uncomfortable state came from just using gear that I had from traditional tent camping endeavors and not having any true equipment to be fully set up in the back of a car.

Have you ever had anyone question whether car camping is “real” camping?

I think what’s nice about our offering is it’s not replacing those types of trips. It’s a complementary piece of gear. Our customers are a mix of all, which is really inspiring to us, like people who have never gone camping and who probably still wouldn’t today if they had to sleep in a tent. They’ll go sleep in what they see more in line with a bed in the back of their car because they’re protected from weather, wildlife—it’s maybe more safe, or it’s just the comfort it brings. I wouldn’t say we’ve had anyone say this isn’t “true” camping or that this isn’t rough and tough enough.

Could a Luno mattress be a good investment if I found that I needed to use it full time?

We offer a lifetime warranty. If you do buy a new car buyback program so that’s no issue, we replace as needed, but there may be a limited opportunity with some vehicles where what you’ve bought will fit. This is not something you’re taking backpacking; this is not light; it doesn’t have thin materials; it’s 15 pounds with veneers of fabric that will keep it inflated and protected from pets. Pets that are 100-plus [pounds] with claws can walk around on these things and they’ll be just fine. We basically divert over 90% of waste back to us, so if there’s a defective product or somebody just doesn’t want it, we’re bringing it back to HQ here in Bend. We’re taking all of our mattresses into an upcycling program, [turning] it into a really different offering and reselling it. We are truly fortunate as a company to have a product that can be upcycled.

How has your move been to Bend?

We were in California at first, and a lot of the people who were part of the company were looking to stay with us more long term, and it was really hard for them to afford housing in Santa Barbara, so we took a group consensus of areas we prefer to live, and Bend has been really special to us in that way. Our January here was massive, so the company Luno fit in well.