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When Georgia Di Mattos and Bianca Dunne first met at their local mother and baby club in Richmond, west London, they never expected to become business partners. Bianca, an NHS sonographer from Dublin, had given birth just three weeks before, and Georgia, an architect from Brazil, was heavily pregnant. Both were navigating the highs and lows of a life radically changed by the arrival of a newborn.
Now they run Zults, a revolutionary new sextech app that aims to destigmatise the conversation around sexual health.
I meet them both at Di Mattos’s Richmond home, and 38-year-old Dunne explains how it all started: “Myself and a friend had set up this group, basically a meet-and-greet for around 20 Richmond mums.”
“We all used to meet in this cafe with our a million buggies and babies. When Georgia walked in, I knew instantly I wanted to be her friend. She was covered in these amazing tattoos, and I just thought ‘wow, she’s so cool’”.
At the time, a few of the mums in the group were looking to do something different with their lives — perhaps taking a break from work or becoming self-employed in order to spend more time with their children. While the idea of starting a business was on the cards for both, neither had managed to land on anything that genuinely inspired them.
That wasn’t until a couple of years later, on a September morning in 2019, when Di Mattos finally divulged a secret to Dunne that it all fell into place. Di Mattos and her husband were in an open marriage and were regulars of London’s growing underground sex party scene, she divulged, blindsiding Dunne in the process.
Dunne had conversely always been in a monogamous relationship with her husband, also an NHS doctor, though she was completely supportive of — and intrigued by — her friend’s lifestyle.
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Di Mattos is far from an outlier. The capital has been at the forefront of the sex positivity movement and boom in non-monogamy over the last few years. Feeld, the sex and kink app has grown in membership by 160 per cent since 2019, and there has been a 300 per cent increase in people Googling non-monogamy since the pandemic. Sex parties like Killing Kittens, founded by Kate Middleton’s schoolfriend, have also seen a post-pandemic surge in popularity, and have swiftly gone from niche to mainstream — “beware the sex party bore,” the Spectator even warned in 2022. Polyamory, ethical non-monogamy and open relationships are all becoming a far more regular fixture of the collective dating experience across ages and gender identities.
And while this sexual revolution is ushering in a new era of liberation, it also presents a set of newfound challenges, particularly when it comes to sexual health.
On Di Mattos’ part, she began to find that each time she went to a sex party, or hooked up with a new partner, she would find herself having to pause to awkwardly and ask whether they had recently had an STI test. What followed was her either waiting while her partner fumbled to find a screenshot of their sexual health results, or them asking her to simply take their word for it — which Di Mattos wasn’t prepared to do. It had become so difficult that she considered taking a break from the scene.
“Me and my husband have always been in an open relationship,” Di Mattos tells me candidly. “I want to have fun, but I don't want to compromise my health either.”
This is what sparked the idea for an app, and on that day in 2019, when Di Mattos told Dunne, she was instantly on board. “It was a meeting of minds,” Dunne says. Initially, the pair brainstormed a sexual health tracking app, where users could order at-home testing kits for STIs, receive their results and share their status among fellow users. “We knew instantly that this was going to be our new business,” adds Bianca.
But after Covid hit, the pair decided to adapt the idea to Zults, an app where users can securely share or request sexual health results. It launched last month, and is partnered with NHS Sexual Health London (SHL).
While we are sitting on the sofa in di Matto’s living room, her phone pings. “See, someone’s just sent me their results from Sexual Health London. It’s a screenshot — how can I validate that that’s real? People learned to falsify test results during Covid, we all know how to photoshop nowadays, you know?” Which is why Zults is so unique.
So, how does it work? After getting results back from SHL’s laboratory, users can upload them to Zults and share them with others through a web link, QR code, or via Bluetooth. The information is then held on slick digital Zults card, visually akin to a credit card, displaying your name, when you were tested, and for what infections. di Matto hopes it will eliminate the need for awkward — and unverifiable — screenshots.
The other option is to forward an email, which can often be impenetrable to those unfamiliar with sexual health vernacular. “Even [with an email] you’re reading things like, this person has tested negative for anal swab,” di says. “It’s all very clinical and difficult to access. The information just sits in your email. If, in three months, somebody asks for a screenshot, it's like, ‘where is it? I don't know’.
“At the moment, we just don't treat sexual health as something that can be part of your lifestyle,” she continues. “I want to be able to share [my sexual health results] in a way that is cool and doesn’t make me feel embarrassed. If not, we’re feeding into the stigma that already surrounds STIs — people don't share and don't talk about it because there isn’t a nice way to do it at the moment.”
I want to be able to share [my sexual health results] in a way that is cool and doesn’t make me feel embarrassed
Zults’ release is part of a global boom in sexual wellness and sextech. The global sexual wellness market is expected to reach nearly £93 billion by 2026, according to Forbes. While sex toys, which were once the preserve of dedicated and niche sites like LoveHoney, are now available at mainstream clothing retailers like ASOS. High street shops like Boots and Superdrug have sexual wellness sections.
And of course, STIs are an issue for all daters, not just for the non-monogamous community. “One of my girlfriends came to visit who was going out with a guy, and she wanted to ask if he was tested or not,” Di Mattos says. “And she told me ‘I don't think I'm gonna ask. I'm so embarrassed.’”
Bianca’s experience working in the health sector had seen her growing increasingly worried about the rise of STIs. Over the last couple of years, sexual health services in England have been grappling with unprecedented increases in demand as councils have urged the government to provide them with extra funding. Data from the Office of Health Disparities shows that 97 per cent of councils have seen increases in cases of gonorrhoea, since 2017, with ten councils seeing numbers triple. There has also been an increase of 76 per cent increase in rates of syphilis and a 36 per cent rise in cases of chlamydia.
It is a problem that London is at the centre of. Analysis of UK Health Security Agency figures by the Standard shows that 32 per cent of all STIs in England in 2023 were reported in the capital.
Bianca is particularly concerned about the potential impact of STIs on fertility. “I work in fertility clinics, I think people are aware of [STIs] but they don't think it's ever going to affect them,” she says. “But there are a lot of silent infections like gonorrhoea and chlamydia, which you can contract and not know about. And then ten years later you're trying to get pregnant, you find out your fallopian tubes are blocked. I see that all the time when I'm scanning girls.”
The pair are also acutely aware that some STIs, like herpes and HIV, can be untransmittable, and therefore whether or not a person should disclose whether they are infected has been up for debate. Is there a risk that Zults could feed into the stigma that already exists surrounding these infections?
“Of course, we want people to understand that there are some infections, like herpes, that you’re always going to test positive for,” Bianca says. “We’re working on a feature to signal that an infection is untransmittable — for example if you have HIV and are taking antiretrovirals [drugs which stop HIV replicating in the body], we want you to be able to signal your viral load. That would be amazing.”
Another feature Bianca and Georgia hope to implement in the near future is a partnership with dating apps, allowing Zults cards to be accessible on users’ dating profiles. In May, gay dating app Grindr partnered with Sexual Health London to provide free STI testing kits, delivered straight to users’ homes.
“We can’t deny that STIs have increased due to hook-up culture and online dating,” Bianca says. “Plus, when you meet someone online, you're probably less likely to have the confidence to say to ask them about their sexual health because of the type of relationship you’ve built.”
Sex parties would also be another target collaboration. While they provide condoms for attendees, Georgia thinks doesn’t go far enough to protect against STIs. “Sex parties don’t want to acknowledge the existence of STIs. Yes, they have condoms, but that is only one form of protection, which prioritises men. What about women having sex with women, or infections transmitted orally?
For now, Zults has already seen immense success. After launching in June, the brand hosted a ten day pop-up on Soho’s Dean Street, and even had a space at Pride in London.
“We want to allow people to normalise that necessary conversation, and make it seamless,” Bianca says. “Yes,” Georgia adds. “Sexual health is sexy!”
