A condom. It's packaging. A pull tab. You pull it. It opens properly.
No hesitation, no opening with your teeth, no tearing, no anxiety.
And above all: the condom the right way round. Every. Single. Time.
It seems incredibly simple, but we have been waiting for this for a long time.

OK, it is practical. But actually, it is much more than that. Because with more than 23 billion condoms used every year worldwide, and almost one condom in five incorrectly used (inside out, turned over, torn, not replaced, and ultimately not put on...), the risk of contamination by STIs (Sexually Transmitted Infections) and unwanted pregnancies is considerable.

This figure changes the nature of the problem. It is no longer an individual, occasional inconvenience specific to a few clumsy users. It is a failure to provide an appropriate industrial response, the consequences of which can be measured in terms of public health. A study has thus shown that nearly 90% of people surveyed had already, at least once, given up using a condom because they had not managed to unwrap it and put it on in time. This abandonment is not an abstract figure: each time it happens, it means unprotected sex that could have been protected.

This is where Rodilo changes scale. It is not a product that simply makes an action more comfortable. It is a product that corrects, at the source, the single point of friction responsible for a recurring failure in the use of the most widespread method of contraception and STI prevention in the world. No awareness campaign, no sex education, no improvement to the condom itself has any effect on this specific cause of failure: it is not in the product, but in its packaging. Rodilo offers the first solution to directly address this specific variable.

And this is also what makes Rodilo’s potential for adoption different from that of a niche innovation. An object that corrects an action repeated 23 billion times every year, across all cultures and on every continent, has a natural virility: it is the kind of “before/after” that can be shown, shared and understood through a single gesture, without any explanation. The content potential — demonstration of the unwrapping, before/after, testimonials — is immediate and universal.

This is what distinguishes a convenience innovation from a disruptive innovation: the latter does not merely help the person using it, it changes the statistic itself.

Everyone remembers the change in can openings in the 1980s. The tab model that came off completely and separated into two sharp parts — dangerous for hands, and discarded everywhere in nature — was replaced, in just a few years, by the model still used today, which remains attached to the can. The entire global production shifted. A large-scale pollution and injury problem, solved effectively and simply by changing the opening.

The condom presents the same problem, with STIs on top of it. And in its case, even more than the packaging itself, it is the unwrapping that determines its success — or failure.

The problem is documented, not anecdotal: seven structural causes of user error have been identified in academic and professional literature. In concrete terms, the current packaging is torn open from one edge, which does not always work. The condom falls out, or remains stuck. And when the opening goes well, it appears by the ring — with no indication of orientation — which leads to it being put on the wrong way round and turned over in 30% of cases. Each time, in addition to the risk of contamination, there is the embarrassment and loss of arousal that go with it.

No major player in the sector has changed this packaging for decades. Their investments have remained focused on the product — textures, lubricants, materials — never on the correct action that must come first. This is exactly the gap that Rodilo fills: packaging that opens correctly, presents the condom the right way round, does not let it fall out, and is removed by pinching the reservoir — thereby expelling the air, which is one of the causes of condom breakage.

The result: the condom is ready to be rolled on the right way round, without error, on the first attempt.

This also means, very concretely, less waste: a significant proportion of condoms purchased today are lost before use — stuck during opening, damaged during handling, thrown away after a failed attempt. Making the action safe from the first attempt also means reducing this waste.

The condom market is a very unique market. It is both a medical device — Class IIb, governed by the European MDR regulation and the ISO 4074 standard — and a mass consumer product, sold both in pharmacies and in mass retail. Two different logics, two levels of requirements, one single object.

Five groups dominate this market worldwide. Their playing field, for decades, has been the product: textures, lubricants, materials, brand repositioning. Not the packaging. Alongside them, independent manufacturers produce private-label products in considerable volumes, without developing their own innovation. The sector has seen its share of acquisitions and consolidations over the past twenty years — a sign of an industry that is moving, but always using the same levers.

In the premium segment, margins remain comfortable. The result: no traction towards real innovations. Why disrupt a profitable market? Research by brands into optimising application and reducing condoms damaged during opening naturally does not attract attention.

Rodilo’s patented device occupies precisely this space. Its apparent simplicity required a long and technical development process, until an advanced level of product maturity and the qualities required for commercialisation were achieved. Rodilo successfully passed ISO 4074 prequalification in March 2026, a milestone that few projects at this stage of development can claim. CE marking of the finished product has already been approved with a partner manufacturer that is itself EU MDR, ISO 13485, FDA 510(k) and ISO 14001 certified — the standards of the biggest names in the sector.

This innovation is protected by a patent whose coverage currently extends across 27 territories, including the main global manufacturing and consumer markets. Enough to transform a space that has remained empty for decades and provide a real benefit to users, while offering brands a genuine differentiator.

It already exists. Rodilo currently produces its device through segmented industrial subcontracting: each stage is entrusted to a separate partner, precisely so that no one, other than Rodilo, has an overall view of the process. A way of securing intellectual property and know-how without building a factory.

What does not yet exist is the integrated version: a single machine, proprietary to Rodilo, which will bring together all the crucial stages. Its development is underway, partly financed by the current investment round.

On the ground, the signals are already there. A user test conducted at trade fairs collected 61 usable responses — and validated the product hypothesis with an average satisfaction score of 4.10 out of 5. An independent Nielsen study, conducted in Great Britain on a comparable concept and with a panel of 260 respondents, confirms this signal with a purchase intention index above the reference threshold, and particularly strong appeal among 18–30-year-olds.

On the market side, four distributors are currently waiting for a certified and registered product in order to commercialise it — in Europe and Latin America, some already with a letter of intent under negotiation. Prequalification has been achieved; regulatory registration, market by market, remains — a matter of months, not years.

Manufacturing the product is no longer the question: that has been solved. What remains to be built is everything that transforms an invention into a market.

A proprietary brand must be built. The corresponding marketing must be developed. Territory by territory, we need to understand what “reassurance” means culturally in Brussels, São Paulo or Munich. Contracts with local distributors must be signed. The logistics connecting outsourced production to dispersed markets must be organised. And finally, we need to sell — for real — and collect the first reactions from users under real-life conditions, outside a test panel.

This is precisely the moment when support matters most. Investing in Rodilo today means investing in education around an action as ordinary as it is universal — opening a condom — at the exact moment when it moves from the laboratory into everyday life.

This reassuring action changes something deeper than the use itself. The anticipatory anxiety that precedes opening decreases. The pressure to do it correctly, at the crucial moment, also disappears. You feel safer, it will always be the right way round, and you will no longer turn it over. Either partner can take the initiative more freely, making things more balanced. An individual, discreet impact — but one which, multiplied by the number of successful actions, becomes a real public health impact, by increasing confidence and reducing STIs and unwanted pregnancies.