Sex Toy Start-Up Seduces Hot Tech Investors

A new San Francisco sex-toy company is starting up with a bulge of private investment apparently because of successful design advancements in its "high-end" vibrator series. The JimmyJane company has lured a total of $8.3 million in investment cash, Reuters reports. "I can't even tell you what a challenge it was to get people to understand what we were doing when I only had a few sketches," said company founder Ethan Imboden, who has studied engineering and genetics.

Some 45% of Americans use sex toys. "There is a big brand vacuum and nowhere is brand more relevant than here," Imboden said in a previous interview. One big fan is Desperate Housewives actress Teri Hatcher, who's desperate no longer. "You have great forward-thinking products. Any time you want to send anything, I would love it," she wrote Imboden. (More sex toys stories.)