- Snap CEO Evan Spiegel has a sister named Caroline who is also in the tech industry.
- Caroline Spiegel launched a startup earlier this year called Quinn, a "much less gross, more fun PornHub for women,"she told TechCrunch in March.
- However, Quinn has since rebranded after discovering that more than just women were enjoying the site's audio and written porn, but "they just hadn't felt they could ask for it."
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
There's a new startup that's entered the $30 billion sex-tech industry, and the last name of its founder isn't entirely unfamiliar to Silicon Valley.
Caroline Spiegel is the younger sister of Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. It was first reported in March that Caroline Spiegel, as a 22-year-old Stanford University senior studying computer science, was launching a website home to free audio- and text-based porn, and devoid of visual content.
The younger Spiegel has since continued in her older brother's footsteps, becoming the second Spiegel sibling to drop out of Stanford their senior year to follow their startup dreams.
The startup, called Quinn, officially launched its website this month after its beta went live back in April. Quinn is intended to be an alternative to the plethora of porn that is image-heavy and made with the male gaze in mind, Caroline Spiegel told TechCrunch in March.
While Spiegel initially described Quinn to TechCrunch as "a much less gross, more fun PornHub for women," Quinn has since rebranded to cater to "all genders and sexual identities."
"Quinn learned that it wasn't just women who were enjoying the content on Quinn," the company said this month in a press release. "Everyone was looking was a more all-around pleasurable masturbation experience too — they just hadn't felt they could ask for it."
Spiegel told TechCrunch that the idea for Quinn stemmed from the stigma surrounding female masturbation and pleasure, resulting in a dearth of female-centric sexual products and content. In a 2005 study, only 39% of cisgender women said they "usually" or "always" orgasm during straight sex.
But more recently, there's been an influx of sex-tech companies geared toward women. Companies such as Unbound and Dame sell sex products for female pleasure.
Perhaps Quinn's biggest competition is Dipsea, an audio-porn startup valued at $17 million, according to PitchBook. Spiegel said that while she considers Dipsea a competitor, Quinn "sway[s] a little more erotic than they do."
Quinn has already raised nearly $1 million, TechCrunch reported. Spiegel said none of the funding came from her brother, but he's been "very supportive" of the startup.
The Quinn CEO has since moved from Los Angeles to the East Coast, and now lives in Brooklyn. Quinn has brought on two additional execs, a chief operations officer and a head of content, both of whom attended Stanford alongside Spiegel.