Hardware

Sex toy startup LELO gives the condom a design-savvy makeover

Comment

Image Credits:

Stylish sex toy maker LELO is introducing something to go along with its pleasure-centered machinery today – condoms.

There’s already a mind-blowing amount of prophylactics readily available at your local corner store, but what’s the difference between any of them? “Zero!” says LELO founder Filip Sedic.

His sex toys launched to much enthusiasm over a decade ago and Sedic has been introducing pleasure producing products ever since. The company’s newest brand, LELO HEX, is a condom utilizing innovative technology to make them stronger, longer-lasting and thinner (for his pleasure).

“You want something with a good feel or you want something super strong. That’s the choice and sorry, but I don’t think you have a good feel if you put condoms on top of one another,” Sedic said of the current state of the condom industry.

And those limited choices leads to a continued fall in usage worldwide, Sedic contends. In other words, men don’t like using something that dulls their enjoyment.

Some might see it as a lame excuse – and safe sex is sexy btw – but if some men aren’t using condoms because there’s a problem with the structure then there’s a problem with getting them to use them.

So Sedic decided to do something about it by restructuring the way condoms are made. His hexagonal design is laid over the sheerest of latex material to create a razor-thin thin membrane, thus allowing the wearer to feel more friction and reduce both slippage and breakage during intercourse.

[graphiq id=”aa9THbSg89n” title=”Percent of Contraceptive Users That Use Each Method” width=”600″ height=”528″ url=”https://w.graphiq.com/w/aa9THbSg89n” link=”http://birth-control.healthgrove.com” link_text=”Percent of Contraceptive Users That Use Each Method | HealthGrove”]

A brief history of the condom

A better condom is a lofty promise – prophylactics haven’t had much in the way of innovation for 70+ years.

For those of you wondering how condoms came to be and why a change is so significant – the first mention of condoms dates back to Egyptian hieroglyphs, but the first person ever recorded using one of these trusty rubbers was a 15th Century physician in Italy named Gabriele who was looking for a better way to prevent the most common sexually transmitted disease at the time, syphilis.

Then lots of folks started using homemade condoms from sheep guts and other animal innards to prevent pregnancy and disease. Sometime around the mid-19th to early 20th centuries major players like Durex and Trojan started mass producing these sheaths in rubber, but faster and cheaper and condoms became the best form of birth control in the Western world before the introduction of the pill.

And that brings us to today. “You are likely using the same, exact condom your grandfather used,” Sedic said.

Please, please me

fe235b01-fe56-4b49-af53-4a51e7760801

The problem with the lack of change is a continued drop in use. Condoms still slip off, break during sex and lots of guys still complain they can’t feel much while wearing them. It’s why Bill Gates is offering $100,000 to anyone who can come up with a better condom and says we have a condom predicament throughout the world.

Sedic hopes to change all that with the new design. He demonstrated the toughness of his condoms by putting one on over his fist and poking it with a pen.

“You see? Only one part here is open,” he said, pointing to a hexagon-shaped break in the condom.

I was left a little confused on how any break is okay but was told the new structure helps contain breakage to just one place, rather than the entire condom, which better protects you and your partner.

And, to Sedic’s point, it was hard to break the condom without a sharp object (I’ll assume none of you are going to be taking pens to your prophylactics right before sex).

Rubber Soul

Sedic is releasing his new condoms to the world today at $12 for a 12 pack (or a buck a pop). They’re still an all-Latex deal, so sorry those of you with a Latex allergy, it’s still polyurethane, polyisoprene, or lamb intestine for you.

But the condom redesign is only part of Sedic’s company plan to bring better health products to market. He currently has several projects in the works involving everything from DNA to a toothbrush designed to better remove biofilm from your teeth. He also has a patent on a “personal massager with undulating arm” capable of simultaneously bending and vibrating.

Condoms are a good industry to focus on right now if you’re looking to change the world for the better. It’s not just one of the best ways we have to prevent pregnancy, but also STD’s and with the very serious and real danger posed by the Zika virus, a condom that doesn’t break or slip and feels more like second skin could better encourage use among men and their partners in affected areas.

More TechCrunch

Zen Educate, an online marketplace that connects schools with teachers, has raised $37 million in a Series B round of funding. The raise comes amid a growing teacher shortage crisis…

Zen Educate raises $37M and acquires Aquinas Education as it tries to address the teacher shortage

“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine.”

Scarlett Johansson says that OpenAI approached her to use her voice

A new self-driving truck — manufactured by Volvo and loaded with autonomous vehicle tech developed by Aurora Innovation — could be on public highways as early as this summer.  The…

Aurora and Volvo unveil self-driving truck designed for a driverless future

The European venture capital firm raised its fourth fund as fund as climate tech “comes of age.”

ETF Partners raises €284M for climate startups that will be effective quickly — not 20 years down the road

Copilot, Microsoft’s brand of generative AI, will soon be far more deeply integrated into the Windows 11 experience.

Microsoft wants to make Windows an AI operating system, launches Copilot+ PCs

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. For those who haven’t heard, the first crewed launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule has been pushed back yet again to no earlier than…

TechCrunch Space: Star(side)liner

When I attended Automate in Chicago a few weeks back, multiple people thanked me for TechCrunch’s semi-regular robotics job report. It’s always edifying to get that feedback in person. While…

These 81 robotics companies are hiring

The top vehicle safety regulator in the U.S. has launched a formal probe into an April crash involving the all-electric VinFast VF8 SUV that claimed the lives of a family…

VinFast crash that killed family of four now under federal investigation

When putting a video portal in a public park in the middle of New York City, some inappropriate behavior will likely occur. The Portal, the vision of Lithuanian artist and…

NYC-Dublin real-time video portal reopens with some fixes to prevent inappropriate behavior

Longtime New York-based seed investor, Contour Venture Partners, is making progress on its latest flagship fund after lowering its target. The firm closed on $42 million, raised from 64 backers,…

Contour Venture Partners, an early investor in Datadog and Movable Ink, lowers the target for its fifth fund

Meta’s Oversight Board has now extended its scope to include the company’s newest platform, Instagram Threads, and has begun hearing cases from Threads.

Meta’s Oversight Board takes its first Threads case

The company says it’s refocusing and prioritizing fewer initiatives that will have the biggest impact on customers and add value to the business.

SeekOut, a recruiting startup last valued at $1.2 billion, lays off 30% of its workforce

The U.K.’s self-proclaimed “world-leading” regulations for self-driving cars are now official, after the Automated Vehicles (AV) Act received royal assent — the final rubber stamp any legislation must go through…

UK’s autonomous vehicle legislation becomes law, paving the way for first driverless cars by 2026

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved…

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

SoLo Funds CEO Travis Holoway: “Regulators seem driven by press releases when they should be motivated by true consumer protection and empowering equitable solutions.”

Fintech lender SoLo Funds is being sued again by the government over its lending practices

Hard tech startups generate a lot of buzz, but there’s a growing cohort of companies building digital tools squarely focused on making hard tech development faster, more efficient and —…

Rollup wants to be the hardware engineer’s workhorse

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 is not just about groundbreaking innovations, insightful panels, and visionary speakers — it’s also about listening to YOU, the audience, and what you feel is top of…

Disrupt Audience Choice vote closes Friday

Google says the new SDK would help Google expand on its core mission of connecting the right audience to the right content at the right time.

Google is launching a new Android feature to drive users back into their installed apps

Jolla has taken the official wraps off the first version of its personal server-based AI assistant in the making. The reborn startup is building a privacy-focused AI device — aka…

Jolla debuts privacy-focused AI hardware

The ChatGPT mobile app’s net revenue first jumped 22% on the day of the GPT-4o launch and continued to grow in the following days.

ChatGPT’s mobile app revenue saw its biggest spike yet following GPT-4o launch

Dating app maker Bumble has acquired Geneva, an online platform built around forming real-world groups and clubs. The company said that the deal is designed to help it expand its…

Bumble buys community building app Geneva to expand further into friendships

CyberArk — one of the army of larger security companies founded out of Israel — is acquiring Venafi, a specialist in machine identity, for $1.54 billion. 

CyberArk snaps up Venafi for $1.54B to ramp up in machine-to-machine security

Founder-market fit is one of the most crucial factors in a startup’s success, and operators (someone involved in the day-to-day operations of a startup) turned founders have an almost unfair advantage…

OpenseedVC, which backs operators in Africa and Europe starting their companies, reaches first close of $10M fund

A Singapore High Court has effectively approved Pine Labs’ request to shift its operations to India.

Pine Labs gets Singapore court approval to shift base to India

The AI Safety Institute, a U.K. body that aims to assess and address risks in AI platforms, has said it will open a second location in San Francisco. 

UK opens office in San Francisco to tackle AI risk

Companies are always looking for an edge, and searching for ways to encourage their employees to innovate. One way to do that is by running an internal hackathon around a…

Why companies are turning to internal hackathons

Featured Article

I’m rooting for Melinda French Gates to fix tech’s broken ‘brilliant jerk’ culture

Women in tech still face a shocking level of mistreatment at work. Melinda French Gates is one of the few working to change that.

2 days ago
I’m rooting for Melinda French Gates to fix tech’s  broken ‘brilliant jerk’ culture

Blue Origin has successfully completed its NS-25 mission, resuming crewed flights for the first time in nearly two years. The mission brought six tourist crew members to the edge of…

Blue Origin successfully launches its first crewed mission since 2022

Creative Artists Agency (CAA), one of the top entertainment and sports talent agencies, is hoping to be at the forefront of AI protection services for celebrities in Hollywood. With many…

Hollywood agency CAA aims to help stars manage their own AI likenesses

Expedia says Rathi Murthy and Sreenivas Rachamadugu, respectively its CTO and senior vice president of core services product & engineering, are no longer employed at the travel booking company. In…

Expedia says two execs dismissed after ‘violation of company policy’