GetHarley, a platform that connects customers with skincare clinicians and associated merchandise, has raised $52 million in a spherical of funding led by current investor Index Ventures.
Based out of London in 2019 by Charmaine Chow, GetHarley is a telehealth platform that provides anybody a direct channel to certified skincare professionals, together with dermatologists and plastic surgeons, who suggest merchandise and coverings for circumstances corresponding to zits, uneven pores and skin tone or hyperpigmentation, rosacea, melasma, and extra. On-line consultations value £40 ($50) for half-hour, although the place extra advanced medical histories are concerned, sufferers pays £150 ($186) for a extra senior-level marketing consultant dermatologist.
A part of GetHarley’s enterprise mannequin includes promoting skincare merchandise as a part of a customized plan, catering to particular particular person elements corresponding to whether or not the person has dry or oily pores and skin, or how mild / darkish their pores and skin is. Merchandise could embrace something from cleansers and serums to moisturisers and eye lotions.
GetHarley field Picture Credit: GetHarley
Pores and skin within the recreation
The broader world skincare merchandise market was pegged as a $130 billion business in 2021, nevertheless GetHarley positions itself in a narrower area of interest categorized as “medical-grade skincare” or “cosmeceuticals” as they’re generally known as. These are form of hybrids between cosmetics and prescription drugs, formulated with a “larger focus of lively substances” than what you may discover in a retailer and are sometimes solely out there by clinicians. This was estimated as a $45 billion business in 2021.
The skincare market measurement has been a boon for skincare startups too, with L.A.-based Topicals and Mom Science, and Kenya’s Uncover, all elevating enterprise capital (VC) money in current months to develop their own-brand skincare merchandise.
GetHarley is taking a barely completely different strategy, as a substitute curating established merchandise and utilizing certified clinicians to suggest particular plans. With hundreds of merchandise available on the market, many with their very own distinctive pitch on why they’re the perfect factor since sliced bread, it’s tough to filter by the noise — GetHarley guarantees to make issues a little bit simpler.
“The skincare business is overflowing with false claims, celeb advertising and hundreds upon hundreds of selections about learn how to care in your pores and skin,” Chow stated in a press launch. “You find yourself losing big quantities of time, cash and vitality attempting to determine what works for you. I ought to know — I seemed in all places for options for my difficult pores and skin. And whereas customers are being pulled in a number of instructions, clinicians are time-poor and overstretched and you’ll by no means fairly pay money for them. GetHarley solves all this, giving consultants a one-stop platform, and serving to world customers get entry to the perfect recommendation in a crowded market.”
Before now, GetHarley had raised round $15 million in funding, and within the 4 years since its basis, the corporate says it has garnered some 100,000 lively customers and amassed a workforce of 70 — a determine it expects to double over the subsequent yr.
Along with lead backer Index, GetHarley’s newest funding spherical included participation from Headline, Visionaries Membership and Village World.