Looks like sex tech startup Lora DiCarlo is done for • Zoo House News

Lora DiCarlo, a sex tech startup that made headlines in 2019 after being blacklisted by the Consumer Electronics Show, appears to have shut down. The company’s website is offline and orders have reportedly not been fulfilled in months.

Zoo House News has reached out to its eponymous founder for confirmation, but it sure looks like the end of the road for a short-lived, promising high-tech sex toy company.

Founded in 2017, Lora DiCarlo was part of a new wave of tech-advanced sexual health companies led by women. It won an innovation award at CES 2019 for what our author put it at 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 clitoris.” .”

But then the Consumer Technology Association, which runs CES, withdrew the award and banned the company from exhibiting at the show. Their explanation at the time was that neither the company nor its devices “fit into any product category.”

Predictably, this drew immediate backlash and accusations of sexism, prudery, and generally poor judgment. Everyone was on Lora DiCarlo’s side, and the publicity was invaluable, she later told Zoo House News at Disrupt, “I think they actually did us a pretty big favor.” The company raised $2 million at the time dollars and in the five years of its existence about 9 million US dollars in total.

But despite a big return to the show in 2020 (and a coveted TC+ feature, of course), the company appears to have faltered during the pandemic – perhaps falling prey to the same chip shortages and manufacturing issues even established hardware makers have faced .

As reported by Women’s Health, the last few months seem to have been Lora DiCarlo’s last, as various aspects of a functioning retail business began to fail: orders didn’t go out, inventory was gone at retail partners, and employees left. The site went down earlier this month and is still down. While there hasn’t been an official announcement, it certainly seems like the company is busted.

It’s a shame, but thriving as a hardware startup is difficult enough without a pandemic and without the stigma of sex toys increasing resistance. We’ll update this article when we get feedback from DiCarlo.