When founder Anna Vybornova was on the fundraising roadshow, some investors she pitched to abruptly ended the meeting after minutes of talking about her London-based startup, Polari Group.
That’s because the company is developing a novel device which it says can replace douching before anal sex. And despite the discomfort of some potential backers — today it’s announcing a $539k raise. The money comes from VC Chasing Rainbows, Ada Ventures' angel programme, angel network Ventures Together and family office Little Green Bamboo Capital.
According to Dealroom data, it’s the first European startup to raise funds to develop a product specifically around anal sex. The company is developing a ball-shaped device designed to be inserted into the rectum before anal sex, to prevent what it calls “faecal accidents”.
Raising money for such a product is no mean feat in a world where it’s very difficult to raise money for any sextech startup.
Vice clauses (restrictions set by LPs on where their money can be invested that often cover things like tobacco, guns — and sex) as well as conservative investor stigma block many potential backers from considering these ideas. Just seven sextech companies have raised in 2024 so far and across the two previous years only 20 convinced investors to part with their cash.
Polari does split the opinion of investors, says cofounder and CEO Anna Vybornova. “People love what we do or people are disgusted and find it off-putting."
But these disgusted investors might be missing out on a big opportunity.
A 2013 study of more than 1k gay men in Belgium found that two thirds had had anal sex in the previous four weeks and one 2016 survey found that a third of heterosexual people in the US had in the previous year. Using figures from those studies, Polari estimates that 2.8bn anal sex acts happen yearly across the UK, US and Europe.
Founded in 2023 during one of London-founded company builder Entrepreneur First’s cohorts, Polari will use the fresh funds to finalise the design of its device and grow its team.
An alternative to douching
Preparing for anal sex can be time consuming for those that choose to douche — the process of flushing the rectum with water to clean it. NHS guidelines also recommend against douching, because it can damage the body’s natural internal lining and protective mucus.
Because of this, doctors don’t know how to talk about the process with patients, says Polari cofounder and CTO Henry Blest.
It means there’s very little advice available and some people end up engaging in “dangerous” douching practices, he tells Sifted. “Medicine won’t engage with anal douching — but the [LGBTQ+] community won’t stop doing it because they don’t want to have a faecal accident during sex.”
But Polari’s ball-shaped device is designed to be inserted into the rectum before anal sex to prevent exactly that. While the startup can’t share how exactly the device works or design specifics, as it's worried about others copying the idea before it's able to release a product, Vybornova says it's single use.
The device is made from a “novel material” and is in the final stages of design, she tells Sifted. “We have a product that works in models.”
Those, Vybornova adds, are models of the rectum and penis, which have allowed the startup to study how faeces moves during anal sex.
While she says Polari’s device doesn’t need to go through clinical trials before its planned launch in the UK in September 2025 as it’s a consumer product, it does need to meet the ISO standard (an international set of standards covering technology and manufacturing) for sex toys — which dictates that a product must be designed in certain ways to avoid harm to the end user.
It also needs to go through further testing, on things like safety and quality, which will be carried out by an independent contract manufacturing organisation (CMO).
The future
The fresh funding will be spent on finalising the product design in the lab, beginning to take it through regulatory testing and growing the team.
There’s currently one other Polari employee alongside Blest and Vybornova — a chief of staff — and the startup wants to grow the team to between 7-10 people by the time it launches the device. Roles it’s hiring for will include a head of quality and several lab staff.
Polari will also look to get back on the fundraising roadshow sometime between this September and January 2024. It’ll look to raise a “couple of million” which will allow it to release and scale its device as a direct-to-consumer product.
That will involve partnering with a manufacturer to mass produce the device, alongside expanding sales and marketing functions and conducting further regulatory testing.
Further down the line, the startup will look into selling the device white label to other sexual health product providers — alongside developing a “a larger line of proprietary products for anal health and pleasure”, says Blest.
But first there’s the matter of convincing often prudish investors to stump up more cash ahead of the first product launch.
The idea is to raise from VCs rather than angels, but because of the difficulty convincing that group to part with funds, Vybornova says Polari will also target high net worth individuals and family offices.
“We need to be creative. We don’t operate with the same playbook as a B2B SaaS.”
