Lora DiCarlo, a sextech startup that made headlines in 2019 after being blacklisted from the Consumer Electronics Show, appears to have shut down. The firm’s web site is offline and reportedly orders have gone unfulfilled for months.
Thealike has reached out to the eponymous founder for affirmation, nevertheless it positive seems like the top of the road for a briefly promising high-tech intercourse toy enterprise.
Founded in 2017, Lora DiCarlo was considered one of a brand new wave of tech-forward sexual well being firms headed up by girls. It gained an innovation award at CES 2019 for, as our author put it on the time, “a hands-free device that uses biomimicry and robotics to help women achieve a blended orgasm by simultaneously stimulating the G-spot and the clitoris.”
But then the Consumer Technology Association, which runs CES, withdrew the award and banned the corporate from exhibiting on the present. Their rationalization on the time was that neither the corporate nor its units “fit a product category.”
Predictably, this attracted speedy blowback and allegations of sexism, prudery, and customarily unhealthy judgment. Everyone was on Lora DiCarlo’s facet, and the publicity was invaluable, she later advised Thealike at Disrupt: “I think they actually did us a pretty big favor.” The firm raised $2 million round that point, and about $9 million complete over its 5 years of operation.
But regardless of an enormous return to the present in 2020 (and a coveted TC+ characteristic, after all), the corporate appears to have faltered in the course of the pandemic — maybe falling sufferer to the identical chip shortages and manufacturing issues even established {hardware} makers encountered.
As chronicled by Women’s Health, the previous few months appear to have been Lora DiCarlo’s final, as varied facets of a functioning business enterprise started to fail: orders weren’t going out, inventory was gone at retail companions, and personnel have left. The website went down earlier this month and is down nonetheless. Although there has not been any official announcement, it actually does appear that the corporate is kaput.
It’s too unhealthy, however discovering success as a {hardware} startup is difficult sufficient with out a pandemic and the stigma on intercourse toys including drag. We’ll replace this text if we hear again from DiCarlo.
