Luxury sex toy startup Crave closes strategic Series B funding round

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., June 27, 2016 – Crave, a San Francisco-based startup specializing in the design and manufacture of luxury sex toys, announced today that it closed a $1.3 million oversubscribed Series B investment from a broad base of angel investors including the marketplace investment platforms of CircleUp and AngelList. The raise is targeted at increasing investment in product development and further accelerating the healthy growth of the company.

“It’s been exciting to watch the sex toy market move more mainstream in the last few years,” said Michael Topolovac, Co-Founder and CEO of Crave. “This larger market trend, combined with customer excitement around our products, has helped us sustain 50% YOY growth while becoming a highly profitable hardware company While we are funding operations out of cash flows, the new investment will allow us to invest in inventory to support our increasing growth as well as make strategic long term investments to expand our product offerings.”

Ti Chang, Co-Founder and VP of Design, adds “We’ve been extremely fortunate over the past few years to have our products embraced not only by consumers, but by the global design community at large. With that increased visibility comes the challenge of protecting our designs, as well as continuing to make more and better products. This new investment will be highly valuable on both fronts.”

“At CircleUp, we help entrepreneurs with emerging businesses that are growing quickly, already seeing great velocity of sales, filling an important market demand and delighting users authentic brands and products” adds Pat Robinson, Business Development Manager at CircleUp. “When our platform performed a data-driven analysis of Crave’s business across a wide range of variables, Crave surfaced as a great opportunity for our network of investors.

Recent accomplishments include:

• The best-selling Vesper vibrator necklace, which won a 2015 Red Dot design award, continues to delight customers and drive media attention.
• Crave launched the Flex series of vibrators, featuring the first-ever crowdsourced vibration patterns.
• The Crave Bullet, an utterly reimagined take on a classic sex toy, sold out pre-orders in three days.

About CRAVE

CRAVE makes luxury sensual products that look as good as they feel. Founded in 2011 by seasoned entrepreneur and Stanford product designer Michael Topolovac, along with Ti Chang, an award-winning industrial designer from the Royal College of Art, CRAVE is among the few companies in its industry with female-led product design. CRAVE is leading the shift toward stigma-free sentiment around pleasure products, and has received $3.7 M in funding from more than 60 angel investors. CRAVE’s beautiful, innovative, high-quality designs are designed in San Francisco and globally sourced. For more information, visit LOVECRAVE.com.