A West Australian man believes he has helped create about 1,000 babies across the globe through an app he dubs: "Tinder for wannabe parents".
Paul Ryan is the founder of Just a Baby, which lets people swipe left and right to find a potential parenting partner.
Speaking from his home in Denmark on WA's south coast, Mr Ryan said his start-up allowed people to find eggs, a womb, an embryo or sperm.
But the unregulated service has raised concerns about health risks, and experts say people should be vigilant.
Users can upload a profile picture and a bio and set a distance to search a potential match.
If they come across someone they gel with, they can discuss how they'd like to proceed.
Some arrange for artificial insemination through IVF clinics and others opt for the natural method.
While different to the traditional way of conceiving a child, Mr Ryan says the app is about uniting people who want a baby and bringing it "back to the basics".
Creating dads, not donors
Mr Ryan said some people were choosing the app because, unlike sperm donor clinics, it allowed them to have contact with their child before they turned 18.
In clinics, sperm donors must wait until the child becomes an adult before they can have any contact. It is also up to the child to decide whether to initiate that contact.
"[Some men] don't want to be an anonymous donor, they want to be a dad," Mr Ryan said.
"It might not be a full-time dad, maybe they want to be a part-time dad or participate in the child's upbringing to some degree.
"Maybe they want to help pay for things, maybe they want to raise a child … certainly that's my position."
The WA entrepreneur wants to "get rid" of the need for sperm donors and simply put people in touch with each other.
He says his app also helps men choose where their sperm goes.
"[It lets] you meet people and you are part of the decision-making process," Mr Ryan said.
People who donate to sperm banks do not have as much of a say in where their deposits are distributed.
While the ABC was unable to independently verify the estimation, Mr Ryan said that based on the babies he knew about, he expected the app helped facilitate about 1,000 births.
However, due to privacy reasons, there is no official counting mechanism.
He said the app has had about 250,000 downloads since its inception five years ago, with 25,000 monthly users.
The biggest number of users are in Australia, America and the United Kingdom.
AMA expresses safety concerns
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) WA president Mark Duncan-Smith said the app was just a method of communication and urged people to go through medical clinics following their introduction.
"That's the safe way to make sure things are done properly, safely, ethically and not at a transitional level," Dr Duncan-Smith said.
"So, in other words, it shouldn't be that people are making money out of this, it should be done for the greater good."
Paid surrogacy is also illegal in Australia.
Dr Duncan-Smith said people should also practise good public health measures to prevent the spread of STIs.
"You need to be safe, you need to protect yourself — we only have to go back to the old grim reaper ads … if it's not on, it's not on," he said.
Mr Ryan also said he was worried about "sex pests" pressuring women for sex through the app, but said there was a reporting system that could see people banned from the platform for life.
Asked about potential custody issues his app could create, he said the platform was simply a place for meeting people, and posed no greater risk of a custody battle than conventional relationships.
Mr Ryan said the family courts were full of custody battles between those in marriage breakdowns and hoped his app could potentially be a solution by bringing people together with the sole goal of having a child.
He said people who met on the app could also choose to sign legal paperwork if concerned about potential custody issues, with prior communication encouraged.
Connecting parents across the country
Cowaramup's Peter Duzevich, fathered a child with a same-sex couple in Sydney through the app.
The 41-year-old said his partner already had children and didn't want any more, so he decided to go ahead with the sperm donation.
He went to a WA sperm bank and also completed a full screening and STI check.
The trio then used IVF.
"I just wanted to keep my genes alive," Mr Duzevich said.
"I felt like, 'There's something here that someone could use'.
"I found the most compatible couple I could possibly have hoped for, first up."
Mr Duzevich had a visit from his baby and their parents about six weeks ago. They flew over from New South Wales to meet the family.
He also gets updates on his young son. He was even sent a Father's Day present — a framed photo of him and his son.
"He's the cutest thing you've ever seen," Mr Duzevich said.
"I did fall in love with him straight away, but, at the same time, was more than happy to let him go back with his mums because they are the best mums ever."
