Whether you’re at festivals or clubs, enjoying ambient downtempo or heavy metal, there’s one problem that’s plaguing our nightlife: toilet queues. As a woman or someone who needs to squat to pee, no night out is complete without standing wearily outside locked cubicles, hearing a great song come and go in the distance, working up the courage to bang on the door and then eventually being greeted with six to 10 spaced-out revellers unashamedly filing out before you can finally relieve yourself in what resembles a crime scene. Meanwhile, your male friends will have already sauntered in and out of the urinals, got a round in at the bar and made two new friends on the dancefloor.
Luckily, in recent years, companies have developed a solution to this gender-targeted queue purgatory – and one of them has just received an influx of venture capital from Best Nights VC to fuel their mission. That company is the squat urinal maker Lapee, who have been pushing for pee parity since 2017. Founded in Denmark by two architects, Gina Périer and Alexander Egebjerg, Lapee emerged from Périer’s own experiences as a female festival-goer.
Lapee promises a cleaner, faster bathroom trip than the dreaded festival portaloo; it’s designed to be completely touch-free, and Lapee estimates that their design is six times faster to use than an equivalent space taken up with cubicles
“I was working for a festival in Denmark and was constantly bothered by the endless lines to toilets that were not always super clean,” she recalls. Périer was faced with two alternatives: holding it (and PSA: regularly ignoring your body’s cues to urinate can lead to UTIs, or even bladder stones) or finding a place in public. However, as Périer notes, the latter is “not very nice, it’s unsafe, people can take pictures”. She realised she was “dreaming of a place where you don’t touch anything and just pee, and that’s basically what guys have – a urinal”.
Périer and Egebjerg, who trained together at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen, began mocking up prototypes for a stackable, easy-to-install squat urinal, eventually launching their finished design in 2019. Today, their bright pink structures have reached 23 countries, and can be spotted at locations such as Dekmantel Festival, the Berlin Women’s Run, Wacken Open Air, and, this summer, Berghain’s garden.
Lapee promises a cleaner, faster bathroom trip than the dreaded festival portaloo; it’s designed to be completely touch-free, and Lapee estimates that their design is six times faster to use than an equivalent space taken up with cubicles. How? Its compact modular design means that three urinals take up the same space as one classic bathroom cubicle, and the lack of a door means there’s not likely to be any drug consumption, toilet hookups or TikTok breaks (yes, I experienced this) occurring behind its low pink walls.
If you haven’t used a urinal before, a toilet experience where you can see other users’ faces may take a minute to get used to – but Périer assures that this helps create a sense of safety. This is also why Lapee’s urinals are raised, so that even while squatting they are at the same height as a standing person. If the thought of accidentally locking eyes while peeing sends you into a panic, Périer is quick to remind us that using a urinal is not compulsory – “having [Lapees] also reduces the lines to the toilets, so it’s good for you either way … but I would recommend you try it out at least one time,” she says. “I’ve seen so many times that people can be a bit scared, but then once they’re in it, they’re like, ‘This is amazing!’”
Now, over five years in, Lapee is ready to expand: with hopes to install Lapee loos in places with limited water sources, such as construction sites, catastrophe areas and refugee camps, and develop an indoor version of their product too, you might see more pink spiral cabins popping up near you soon. In September, they secured their largest round of funding yet, with the majority coming from Best Nights VC, the investment arm of Jägermeister.
“We backed Lapee because it’s not just smart design – it’s a real and tangible step toward inclusivity, sustainability, safety and comfort for everyone enjoying nightlife,” says Best Nights VC managing director Lorrain de Silva. “So many clubs and festivals are legendary and iconic places for people — but it should be iconic for everyone. Inclusion keeps the culture alive and open and accessible to all people.”
BNVC says Lapee’s product has proven demand and strong community momentum, aligning with their mission to make nightlife safer, fairer and ready for the next generation. “If nightlife is going to thrive for decades, it has to be sustainable — for the planet and for the people,” de Silva says. Their goal is to make equitable sanitation not just a novelty but a norm. “We hope Lapee becomes so common that no one thinks twice when seeing the beautiful pink spiral! Ideally it becomes a standard part of having a great night out.”
In a recent LinkedIn post, the company added that “this milestone is especially meaningful to us because Lapee is a women-run business majority-owned by women for women. We’re breaking taboos by innovating in sanitation. We serve women’s needs with a hardware, low-tech solution. These are not the typical ingredients for a VC-backed company”. For Best Nights, investing in companies that might not be considered traditional VC targets is particularly exciting. “The future of nightlife is inclusive. The future of nightlife is sustainable. And with what Lapee is doing, that future is already feeling a lot closer.”
