Careers at Harry’s
Mission
Harry’s is a New York based razor company envisioned to recreate modern shaving experience by crafting quality, simplicity, and convenience at a reasonably fair price.
History
Founded by colleagues Jeff Raider and Andy Katz-Mayfield, Harry’s started as an idea proposed to ease the burden of buying quality razor blades which cost a fortune and to make the process of shaving better for guys. After spending over $20 for four razor blades and some shaving cream, Katz-Mayfield felt being taken advantage of, as a consumer.
Raider, co-founder of eyeglass company Warby Parker and Katz-Mayfield’s colleague, empathized with this experience and the two MBA graduates started thinking about a company designed to create high-quality shaving products catered to people at reasonable prices as opposition to the two companies monopolizing the world’s shaving industry - Gillette and Schick.
After trying out every razor blade made everywhere from Egypt to Japan on their own faces, they came across Croma, an elusive European blade, which they discovered was produced by the 93-year-old German factory Feintechnik. Raider and Katz-Mayfield courted the Germans in the next five months and finally landed a supplier deal on May of 2012.
On March 2013, the co-founders launched Harry’s and were “blown away” by the initial response. In 2 weeks, they sold all of their inventory, including 12 weeks' worth of backup stock. Realizing that their 2-month old company might risk outgrowing their 93-year-old manufacturer, they raised a total of $122.5 million round from Tiger Global, Thrive Capital, Highland Capital, and SV Angel to purchase Feintechnik in order to gain better control over the entire process of manufacturing their products.
The deal took about 8 months of negotiation and on January 2014, Katz-Mayfield and Raider officially became Feintechnik’s new owners. German magazine Der Spiegel described it as "a curious combination of U.S. entrepreneurial spirit and German engineering."
In July 2015 the company received a third-round financing of $75.6 million and has raised a total of $211 million in venture capital funding. Now, Harry’s is running an intercontinental manufacturing operation with more than 400 employees and customers in 40 countries around the globe.