Sex toy ecommerce app in China raises $8 million series A funding

Sex shops are not hard to find in China. If you walk around any Chinese city for a while, you’re likely to see several. But as anyone who has ever stepped inside them knows, they’re often full of cheap junk. That means that there’s a significant market online for a curated selection of low-price, high-quality sex toys, and for nearly two years now, a Chinese mobile app called Xingjiabi has been, ahem, plugging that hole.

But sex toy ecommerce, like every other kind of ecommerce in China, is growing. Chinese tech site iHeiMa is reporting today that Xingjiabi – which has now rebranded itself Taqu (Touch) – recently closed a series A round of RMB 50 million (about US$8.1 million). The round is rumored to have been led by China’s Fortune Venture Capital, although that information is unconfirmed.

It’s not hard to understand why someone would want to invest in Taqu, though. According to iHeiMa, the app already boasts more than 20 million users, has broken RMB 10 million (US$1.6 million) in monthly sales, and has an active forum community with more than 100,000 posts. On the sales side, it offers everything from sexy underwear to strap-ons and handcuffs with a limited, curated selection of items ostensibly chosen for their price-to-quality ratio.

People aren’t likely to stop having sex anytime soon, so it stands to reason that with an extra US$8 million in its pocket, Taqu is likely to continue its trending growth. This is one app to keep an eye on if you’re interested in Chinese mobile ecommerce…or if you’re just looking for something new to spice things up in the boudoir.

See: On homosexuality in Chinese gaming culture