At the questionable corner of sports entertainment and male fertility is Sperm Racing, a startup that recently closed a $10m seed round (we will try to resist the low-hanging puns here).
Sperm Racing is, unsurprisingly, the brainchild of an 18-year-old entrepreneur: Eric Zhu. And it’s exactly what it sounds like:
- Two contestants source samples of a few million competitors (privately, of course) and those swimmers race until one crosses the finish line.
- The race track mimics a microscopic version of a reproductive system.
- High-resolution cameras capture everything in real time and verify results.
Zhu wants to turn these competitions into full-blown spectacles, involving fanfare like press conferences, weigh-ins, and play-by-play commentary — and he’s making headway.
Sperm Racing is currently on a live college tour, and its streams and event recordings rack up hundreds of thousands of views.
This begs the obvious: Why?
Zhu wants to promote a dialogue on male fertility (which has been declining for decades) by gamifying it.
And the company’s recent funding round highlights investor interest in the market, which is projected to grow by around 55% to $7.18B by 2034.
The industry is already commanding a lot of VC attention, including companies like:
- Posterity Health, a virtual-first male fertility and sexual health clinic that closed a $13m Series A earlier this year.
- Legacy, an at-home sperm freezing and testing startup that raised $7.5m in funding in 2024.
- Fellow Health, a startup offering mail-in semen analysis tests that closed a $24m Series B in July.
Ultimately, Sperm Racing exists at the crossroads of a noble cause, a hot market, unique tech, and a sincere appeal to big, dumb fun. Say what you will, but companies like that don’t bust on the scene every day.