(Just a friendly warning — the following article is about male sperm; so if that subject makes your teeth clench, just get a glass of warm milk and skip to the next article . . . )
A slew of new startups are encouraging males to do some funny things with their seed — freeze it, improve its motility, and track it. The declining fertility rate in men world-wide has opened the gates to new startup opportunities in the field of sperm collection, analysis, storage, and sales. There are several companies that already send out kits so men can have their sperm sent to labs for testing, and then for cryogenic storage. Dadi and Legacy are two enterprises that are leading the field in this sticky business. ExSeed and YoSperm have gone them one better by manufacturing devices to attach to a smartphone that will immediately analyze sperm count in the comfort of your own home. And Sandstone Diagnostics is offering free health consultations to men on what to eat, how to exercise and cut down on drinking and quitting smoking, to produce premium seed. They also advise all their clients (male clients) to stay out of saunas and hot tubs.
Venture capital likes this idea so much that they are falling all over themselves to get seed money (no pun intended) to YoSperm and others — financing is coming from the likes of Section32, TCG Capital Management, and Bain Capital Ventures.