Smart vibrator Vibease debuts on Indiegogo, new spokesperson is creator of contentious Valley reality TV show

Update: The campaign has launched on Indiegogo and smashed past its goal of USD 15k in under 10 hours.

Vibease has never shied away from public attention. The Singapore startup drew guffaws when it debuted its smartphone-enabled vibrator  at a startup conference in 2012 with its awkward yet effective pitch.

It worked partly because of effervescent co-founder Dema Tio, your typically geeky startup founder who untypically shared with strangers about how his wife was the first tester for the device.

For a couple of engineers — including co-founder Steven Kik — to talk about sex so openly in a continent that isn’t used to such babble is remarkable.

But it also signaled a reality: Asia simply isn’t exactly the most vibrant market for vibrators. Finding public personalities to front Vibease will be hard, since even celebrities here aren’t exactly raving about their sex lives.

So Vibease’s natural first market would be the United States, the land of Sex and the City, 50 Shades of Grey, and Violet Blue (NSFW), a country where around half of women have used vibrators and are even sharing them with their partners.

Today, Vibease announced a couple of significant steps in that direction. First, it will be launching a campaign on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo this week, along with a whole slew of marketing materials targeted at a Western audience (not a single Asian was found in the videos).

Hermione Way with her new toy.

Second, it announced as its product evangelist and spokesperson Hermione Way, creator of Startups: Silicon Valley, a show which drew controversy for glamming up startup life in a way reminiscent of reality TV (over-the-top drama, romance, and blatant fame-seeking). The series was not renewed for a second season.

In many ways, Vibease and Hermione are bedfellows. The British entrepreneur, who isn’t paid for the gig but is given some equity, has never been shy to talk about sex on Twitter, making her a natural evangelist. She also ran Ignite, a hardware startup in the healthcare space.

According to Dema, the TV show may be controversial, but as a person she has been “very nice and professional”.

“Many people in Silicon Valley like her and said good things about her,” he said.