We're in the process of launching our first product at Comingle(http://www.comingle.io), making Arduino-based, open source and hackable sex toys.
We're making a sex toy platform (our library is named OSSex of course) so that it won't matter if your sex toy is made by guys. You can reprogram it to your liking, attach sensors that respond to your feedback or even build your own.
It is super hard to find a payment processor, but I imagine that their hands are tied by the card networks. I bet Stripe would love to support adult payments if they could: lots of adult specific processors charge like 14%. Seems like that'd be some nice action to be a part of, even if only in the adult industries that are lower risk (the adult industry is huge and there's no way some dildo shop is as high risk as a cam site, even though every one treats them the same.)
We are not denying that it's the banks that are the problem. Last I checked, the money that my company generates is as green as the money as an non-adult company makes. It's just a shame that banks and companies that work with those banks, like Stripe, are making blanket statements that all adult related businesses are risk.
Yes, Stripe would love to. It's their bank that refuses. Patrick Collison really went to bat for us but couldn't win.:(
Ben Milne of Dwolla supports adult ventures, and we work with them, but unfortunately as a startup themselves they only operate in the US currently - we're global and need global solutions.
We're making a sex toy platform (our library is named OSSex of course) so that it won't matter if your sex toy is made by guys. You can reprogram it to your liking, attach sensors that respond to your feedback or even build your own.
It is super hard to find a payment processor, but I imagine that their hands are tied by the card networks. I bet Stripe would love to support adult payments if they could: lots of adult specific processors charge like 14%. Seems like that'd be some nice action to be a part of, even if only in the adult industries that are lower risk (the adult industry is huge and there's no way some dildo shop is as high risk as a cam site, even though every one treats them the same.)