A sex tech startup’s triumphant return to CES

When the Lora DiCarlo wagon finally arrives, the rolling glass box's back door opens and another journalist pops out to get on his way. The sex tech company has a week packed full with 20-minute rolling interviews with a curious tech press. No time to spare; I step up, sit down, and we're on our way.

Driving down the Strip in a transparent box is a curious, extremely Vegas experience: puzzled tourists and confused CES attendees gawk from the sidewalks. Four of us are sitting in a makeshift living room with fuzzy white carpet: CEO Lora Haddock, Enzo Ferrari Drift DiCarlo (her fuzzy black-and-white Pomeranian), and a colleague, who holds Enzo in their lap. A four-foot-tall faux sex toy sits in a corner, swaying occasionally.

It's been a hell of a year since the sex tech startup was at the center of a firestorm after the CTA unceremoniously revoked its Innovation Award. By July, the CES organizer found itself eating crow via a press release and agreed to allow sex tech companies to exhibit on a "one-year trial bias," spreading them out amongst the broader category of health tech at the show's Eureka Park startup exhibit space.