Swipe for baby: Behind the app hoping to revolutionise fertility treatments
How much would you pay for a vial of sperm? It’s something not many people have to consider, but this question of cost is just one of the issues at the heart of the donation industry. In the UK, donors cannot be paid more than £45 per donation, and this is ostensibly to cover travel costs – paying for sperm here is illegal. Since 2005, UK law has meant donors can no longer remain anonymous, and donor-conceived children have the right to request identifying details when they turn 18.
Subsequently, the NHS has warned there’s a “huge shortage” of donors and it’s battling growing waiting lists, especially considering less than two per cent of applicants are accepted. Moreover, NHS assisted conception is only funded for those who meet certain criteria, meaning in the majority of cases, single women and gay couples can’t go through the service. So that leaves private banks and clinics as the costly alternative.
As with the NHS, private banks are licensed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the UK fertility regulator. This means they also have to comply with rigorous rules around health screenings and genetic testing. Donors also have to go through counselling sessions to make sure they are comfortable going ahead with the process. There’s a strict limit to how many children can be conceived per donor, which has attracted particular interest since 2024’s Netflix documentary The Man with 1000 Kids about serial Dutch sperm donor Jonathan Meijer. In the UK, the limit is a more modest 10. HFEA’s framework allows licensed banks to promise buyers the, ahem, creme de la creme: a product that’s selected for its highest chance of resulting in pregnancy.
Perusing an online sperm bank is strangely addictive. There is no identifiable information beyond physical details like height, eye colour, hair colour, religion, profession and education level. The London Sperm Bank (LSB), the biggest in the UK, also has a useful, if not aspirational, ‘lookalike section’. Colin Firth and Keanu Reeves are both up for grabs. LSB also offers a little bio of the donor akin to what you’d find on a dating app:
“This quiet and calm donor loves nothing more than curling up with a good book.”
“With a brilliant mind and a passion for both logic and creativity, this donor has built an impressive career in software engineering at one of the world’s leading tech companies.”
But this all comes at a substantial price. Single vials from the LSB cost £1550. They do however offer ‘Donor of the Month”, when a donor is given the dubious honour of being sold at a 40 per cent discount. After check-out, the sperm is sent to your chosen HFEA-licensed clinic, which will then charge for insemination. All in, each attempt can easily cost over £2500.
So what about people falling between the cracks? Those who can’t use the NHS or afford to go private. Well, modern problems require modern solutions. But for many, it’s hard not to baulk at the app-ification of sperm donation promised by Danish start-up Y Factor.
Y Factor is the brainchild of 71-year Dane Ole Schou, the founder of the world’s biggest sperm bank, Cryos International. It launched in the UK at the start of the month, and has already sparked backlash from some corners.
Clare Ettinghausen, director of strategy and corporate affairs at the HFEA, says that although the regulator is “concerned that patients across the country have inconsistent access to NHS funded fertility treatment”, apps are not a safe alternative.
“HFEA is concerned that apps, websites or social media sites that encourage people to consider unregulated donation may expose people to serious medical, legal and emotional risks.
“Although access to funding can be a barrier for many patients on their fertility journey, it is always safer to have treatment at a licensed clinic, where there are laws and guidance to protect and support patients and donors,” Ettinghausen said.
The app, resembling the likes of Tinder and Hinge, allows donors and prospective parents to create profiles and find matches. Individuals then agree to meet for either home insemination, intercourse or go through a clinic. The prices are also set on an individual basis, with potential mothers selecting whether or not they are willing to pay. Y Factor sells itself as a subscription charging matchmaker and not a sperm bank, and as such is able to circumnavigate HFEA’s framework.
When I talk to people about the app, it tends to spark pretty visceral reactions, with one doctor describing it as the ‘Wild West’. It’s an image that Y Factor’s chief executive is trying to change. Quite the tall order.
Speaking to me from Copenhagen, Sofie Hafström Nielsen, says the difficulty for some women to access fertility services was what led her to join the start-up: “I’m sold very much on the fact that people don’t have equal access to fertility treatment, which I think is a big mistake in 2025”. She says that despite sweeping societal shifts in the way people are having children, the regulation around who can get treatment is “not catching up with time”.
Nielsen, with a certain Danish directness, points out that “peer-to-peer donation” is already being facilitated by online forums on Reddit and Facebook, and that the company is “just actually here to try and offer a little bit more structure”.
But in the absence of any legal framework, both Y Factor and Nielsen can only offer up strong recommendations. The entire app is predicated on choice between grown ups.
“Clear communication and aligned preferences will reduce misunderstandings and misaligned expectations, and protect users from unwanted approaches that don’t align with their wishes,” is one such piece of advice offered.
“When we were designing the app, we were looking at this shift into consumer behaviour towards more control and autonomy and personal choice and also transparency in the services we access,” Hafström Nielsen argues.
But where regulated clinics carry out extensive testing for diseases, both inherited and sexual, Y Factor can only recommend users get themselves tested. Where the law protects mothers as the sole parent, Y Factor can only suggest the parties draw up a contract and set expectations before undertaking the process. If you have treatment at a licensed fertility clinic in the UK, the donor will have no legal rights or responsibilities to any children. Y Factor allows for a range of involvement from the donor – from no-strings attached donation all the way to co-parenting.
It is an enormous level of trust being put in and on individual users. But Hafström Nielsen argues that people undertake private arrangements all time: “It’s between two private people. I think it’s pretty similar to a lot of other private agreements.” But this is not quite like selling a car or renting a house, and there are serious questions around user safety and legal protections for both parties.
Hafström Nielsen is hopeful the app will build a large enough user base to “to normalise the market”, which in turn will help shift the dial on fertility access and loosen the “monopoly” of private clinics and banks. But the UK is just a springboard for the company’s long-term ambitions. Hafström Nielsen says roll-out in the US is the goal, where the lack of public healthcare means fertility treatments can set prospective parents back astronomical sums. She also notes that on the whole, Americans are more receptive to trying new apps.
The other markets Y Factor is eyeing up are those with the most restrictive laws on LGBTQ and single women access to fertility treatments. Hafström Nielsen singles out Poland and Italy, where she says the app can “solve a really big problem”.
Access to fertility is undoubtedly a big problem – from cost and waitlists to prohibitive laws. So if Y Factor can tackle those questions, then some users will favourably weigh up risk against reward.
Curious about the user base, I downloaded the app and set up an anonymous profile. The landing page greets you with the promise of making “meaningful connections”, which is perhaps an understatement. What’s immediately apparent is that the donors on the app are still relatively few and far between. Conversations veer between asking about your weekend plans to asking about the best way to get you pregnant. What’s less clear is whether this is simply a prosaic turn towards app-based solutions for real-world problems, or something altogether more precarious: the real Wild West of conception.