GetHarley, a skincare telehealth and consultation platform, raises $52M | TechCrunch

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GetHarley, a platform that connects consumers with skincare clinicians and related products, has raised $52 million in a round of funding led by existing investor Index Ventures. \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a roughly 30-minute demo that ran through the major features that are yet ready to test, I came away convinced that Apple has delivered nothing less than a genuine leapfrog in capability and execution of XR \u2014 or mixed reality \u2014 with its new Apple Vision Pro. ”\nPrior to now, GetHarley had raised around $15 million in funding, and in the four years since its foundation, the company says it has garnered some 100,000 active users and amassed a team of 70 — a figure it expects to double over the next year

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GetHarley, a platform that connects consumers with skincare clinicians and related products, has raised $52 million in a round of funding led by existing investor Index Ventures.


Charmaine Chow, GetHarley is a telehealth platform that gives anyone a direct channel to qualified skincare professionals, including dermatologists and plastic surgeons, who recommend products and treatments for conditions such as acne, uneven skin tone or hyperpigmentation, rosacea, melasma and more. Online consultations cost £40 ($50) for 30 minutes, though where more complex medical histories are involved, patients can pay £150 ($186) for a more senior-level consultant dermatologist.


Part of GetHarley’s business model involves selling skincare products as part of a personalized plan, catering to specific individual factors such as whether the individual has dry or oily skin, or how light / dark their skin is. Products may include anything from cleansers and serums to moisturizers and eye creams.


GetHarley box. Image Credits: GetHarley

Skin in the game


was pegged as a $130 billion industry in 2021, however, GetHarley positions itself in a narrower niche categorized as “medical-grade skincare” or “cosmeceuticals” as they’re sometimes called. These are sort of hybrids between cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, formulated with a “higher concentration of active ingredients” than what you might find in a store and are often only available through clinicians. This was estimated as a $45 billion industry in 2021.



“The skincare industry is overflowing with false claims, celebrity marketing and thousands upon thousands of choices about how to care for your skin,” Chow said in a press release. “You end up wasting huge amounts of time, money and energy trying to figure out what works for you. I should know — I looked everywhere for solutions for my challenging skin. And while consumers are being pulled in multiple directions, clinicians are time-poor and overstretched and you can never quite get hold of them. GetHarley solves all this, giving experts a one-stop platform, and helping global consumers get access to the best advice in a crowded marketplace.”


Prior to now, GetHarley had raised around $15 million in funding, and in the four years since its foundation, the company says it has garnered some 100,000 active users and amassed a team of 70 — a figure it expects to double over the next year.


Meta is rolling out a broadcast-based messaging feature, called Channels, on WhatsApp, similar to a recent update it sent out to Instagram<\/a>, as the social juggernaut experiments with giving more conversational avenues to its 2 billion users. The company is also aiming to earn money from this feature down the road.<\/p>\n


On WhatsApp, Channels messages will show up in a new tab called Updates. It’s a departure from Meta’s approach on Instagram, where channel announcements are communicated via direct messages. On WhatsApp, Meta is focusing on facilitating channels for use by entities such as NGOs, medical research institutions, and fact-checking bodies, as opposed to individual creators.<\/p>\n


Admins can send text, photos, videos, stickers, and polls on these channels, Meta said. Notably, these are one-way conversations, so users won’t be able to reply to those messages.<\/p>\n


While users can join channels through an invite link, WhatsApp is also building a directory to find different channels for hobbies, sports teams, and local officials. The company said it will introduce tools for admins to turn off discoverability for their channels.<\/p>\n


“Today we’re announcing WhatsApp Channels — a private way to follow people and organizations that matter to you, right within WhatsApp. We are starting in Singapore and Colombia, but will roll out to everyone later this year. We’re building Channels to be the most private way to communicate. As a channel admin, your phone number won’t be shown to followers, and following a channel won’t show that to the admin or others following the channel either, ” Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.<\/p>\n


He added that messages sent on Channels will be deleted after 30 days and the company will not keep any record of them.<\/p>\n


Over the ensuing months, Meta plans to extend the availability of the Channels feature to a broader set of countries, with the ultimate goal of providing any user with the capability to establish a Channel of their own.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n


The Mark Zuckerberg-led company is also thinking about various possibilities it can explore with this feature.<\/p>\n


Brazil<\/a> and Singapore<\/a>.<\/p>\n


Communities<\/a> for its user base of more than 2 billion. The company launched Communities<\/a> last year to help clubs, schools, and resident complexes to have one place for all discussions. With Channels, WhatsApp likely wants to become a platform of choice for organizations and authorities to issue updates and alerts to users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"


<\/p>\n


Coinbase, the second-largest crypto exchange globally, is pushing for regulatory clarity in the crypto ecosystem, even as it\u2019s fighting some legal battles of its own.<\/p>\n


sued Coinbase for securities laws violations<\/a> on Tuesday, just one day after the SEC sued Binance, the world\u2019s largest crypto exchange.<\/p>\n


issued a Wells notice<\/a> to Coinbase, in a \u201cpreliminary determination\u201d to recommend that the agency file an enforcement action against the company for alleged \u201cviolations of the federal securities law.\u201d<\/p>\n


Leading the charge is Coinbase\u2019s chief legal officer Paul Grewal, who himself was busy this week testifying before Congress.<\/p>\n


The SEC listed 13 cryptocurrencies as securities in Coinbase\u2019s suit, but the agency noted it was \u201cnot limited to\u201d those. Even with the case up in the air, the exchange has \u201cno plans to delist any of these assets,\u201d Grewal said.<\/p>\n


gave the SEC a deadline<\/a> to respond to Coinbase to clarify its stance on a rule-making petition<\/a> that Coinbase asked for in July 2022.<\/p>\n


TechCrunch+ sat down with Grewal to learn more about the company\u2019s operations going forward, how it plans to deal with the legal process, its level of confidence amid the crackdown, and plans for best and worst case scenarios.<\/p>\n


(Editor\u2019s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.) <\/em><\/p>\n


How long will the legal process potentially take with the SEC, and how far is Coinbase willing to go?<\/strong><\/p>\n


The legal process is important to understand because there\u2019s actually several legal processes happening at once. Focusing on the SEC case against Coinbase, that’s really only going to be up to the court, which will preside over this case.<\/p>\n


It’s unfortunately the reality that in many cases, courts take many months or even years to resolve the dispute between the parties. But I’m hopeful and confident we’re going to get to a resolution here sooner rather than later. Only because we believe the issues here are actually fairly straightforward relative to some of the other cases that were brought by the SEC in recent months and years.<\/p>\n


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","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Jacquelyn-Melinek-Headshot.jpg","twitter":"jacqmelinek","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"id":2296715,"date":"2022-04-07T13:05:32","slug":"coinbase-opens-at-102-billion-valuation-with-initial-public-offering","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2022\/04\/07\/indian-payments-body-refuses-to-acknowledge-coinbases-india-launch\/coinbase-opens-at-102-billion-valuation-with-initial-public-offering\/","title":{"rendered":"Crypto exchange Coinbase sues SEC over rulemaking petition"},"author":133574269,"license":{"source_key":"getty images","person":"Robert Nickelsberg"},"authors":[133574269],"caption":{"rendered":"


Weeks after Meta launched a suite of generative AI-based tools<\/a> to help advertisers create different campaigns, LinkedIn has introduced its own tool to suggest different copies of an ad.<\/p>\n


The company said that it uses data from a marketer’s LinkedIn page and Campaign Manager setting including objective, targeting criteria, and audience to suggest different introductory text to the ad. LinkedIn \u2014 a Microsoft subsidiary \u2014 is unsurprisingly using OpenAI models to create different suggestions of copies.<\/p>\n


The copywriting suggestion works in a simple way. Marketers can input their copy into the “introductory text” box within the Campaign Manager. To get different suggestions for that text, they will have to turn on the “Generate copy suggestions” toggle.<\/p>\n


The feature is currently in a test phase and available to some customers in North America. The company plans to add new functionalities, roll out the feature to new geographies, and add support for more languages in the coming months.<\/p>\n


Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n


a blog post.<\/a><\/p>\n


a “conversation starter” tool<\/a> that used AI to write an intro to a post. In the same month, the Microsoft-owned company also introduced generative AI tools for writing profile bios and recruitment posts<\/a>.<\/p>\n


It’s important to understand that when people use these tools, LinkedIn doesn’t indicate if some or all text is generated by AI.<\/p>\n


copywriting, background generation, and image cropping<\/a>. Weeks later, Google introduced a new Product Studio, which lets advertisers create images using generative AI<\/a>. The company is also using AI to transform ads and adapt them in search results<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"


After a roughly<\/span> 30-minute demo that ran through the major features that are yet ready to test, I came away convinced that Apple has delivered nothing less than a genuine leapfrog in capability and execution of XR \u2014 or mixed reality \u2014 with its new Apple Vision Pro<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


To be super clear, I\u2019m not saying it delivers on all promises, is a genuinely new paradigm in computing or any other high-powered claim that Apple hopes to deliver on once it ships. I will need a lot more time with the device than a guided demo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


But, I\u2019ve used essentially every major VR headset and AR device since 2013\u2019s Oculus DK1 right up through the latest generations of Quest and Vive headsets. I\u2019ve tried all of the experiences and stabs at making fetch happen when it comes to XR. I\u2019ve been awed and re-awed as developers of the hardware and software of those devices and their marquee apps have continued to chew away at the \u201cconundrum of the killer app\u201d \u2014 trying to find something that would get real purchase with the broader public.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


Image Credits:<\/strong> Apple<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n


There are some genuine social, narrative or gaming successes like Gorilla Tag, VRChat or Cosmonius. I\u2019ve also been moved by first-person experiences by Sundance filmmakers highlighting the human (or animal) condition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


The hardware is good — very good — with 24 million pixels across the two panels, orders of magnitude more than any headsets most consumers have come into contact with. The optics are better, the headband is comfortable and quickly adjustable and there is a top strap for weight relief. Apple says it is still working on which light seal (the cloth shroud) options to ship with it when it releases officially, but the default one was comfortable for me. They aim to ship them with varying sizes and shapes to fit different faces. The power connector has a great little design, as well, that interconnects using internal pin-type power linkages with an external twist lock.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


Image Credits:<\/strong> Apple<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n


There is also a magnetic solution for some (but not all) optical adjustments people with differences in vision may need. The onboarding experience features an automatic eye-relief calibration matching the lenses to the center of your eyes. No manual wheels adjusting that here.<\/span><\/p>\n


The main frame and glass piece look fine, though it\u2019s worth mentioning that they are very substantial in size. Not heavy, per se, but definitely present.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


If you have experience with VR at all then you know that the two big barriers most people hit are either latency-driven nausea or the isolation that long sessions wearing something over your eyes can deliver.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


Apple has mitigated both of those head on. The R1 chip<\/a> that sits alongside the M2 chip<\/a> has a system-wide polling rate of 12ms, and I noticed no judder or framedrops. There was a slight motion blur effect used in the passthrough mode but it wasn\u2019t distracting. The windows themselves rendered crisply and moved around snappily.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


new<\/em> comes at a price: $3,500 is on the high end of expectations and firmly places the device in the power user category for early adopters.<\/p>\n


Image Credits:<\/strong> Apple<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n


Here\u2019s what Apple got right that other headsets just couldn\u2019t nail down:<\/span><\/p>\n


The eye tracking and gesture control is near perfect.<\/b> The hand gestures are picked up anywhere around the headset. That includes on your lap or low and away resting on a chair or couch. Many other hand-tracking interfaces force you to keep your hands up in front of you, which is tiring. Apple has high-resolution cameras dedicated to the bottom of the device <\/span>just<\/span><\/i> to keep track of your hands. Similarly, an eye-tracking array inside means that, after calibration, nearly everything you look at is precisely highlighted. A simple low-effort tap of your fingers and boom, it works.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


The resolution means that text is actually readable.<\/b> Apple\u2019s positioning of this as a full-on computing device only makes sense if you can actually read text in it. All of the previous iterations of “virtual desktop” setups have relied on panels and lenses that present too blurry a view to reliably read fine text at length. In many cases it literally hurt to do so. Not with the Apple Vision Pro — text is super crisp and legible at all sizes and at far “distances” within your space.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


Image Credits:<\/strong> Apple<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n


There were a handful of really surprising moments from my short time with the headset, as well. Aside from the sharpness of the display and the snappy responsiveness of the interface, the entire suite of samples oozed attention to detail.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


The Personas Play. <\/b>I was HIGHLY doubtful that Apple could pull off a workable digital avatar based off of just a scan of your face using the Vision Pro headset itself. Doubt crushed. I\u2019d say that if you\u2019re measuring the digital version of you that it creates to be your avatar in FaceTime calls and other areas, it has a solid set of toes on the <\/span>other<\/span><\/i> side of the uncanny valley. It\u2019s not totally perfect, but they got skin tension and muscle work right, the expressions they have you make are used to interpolate out a full range of facial contortions using machine learning models, and the brief interactions I had with a live person on a call (and it was live, I checked by asking off-script stuff) did not feel creepy or odd. It worked.<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n


It\u2019s crisp. <\/b>I\u2019m sort of stating this again but, really, it\u2019s crisp as hell. Running right up to demos like the 3D dinosaur you got right down to the texture level and beyond.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


3D Movies are actually good in it. <\/b>Jim Cameron probably had a moment when he saw “Avatar: Way of Water” on the Apple Vision Pro. This thing was absolutely born to make the 3D format sing \u2014 and it can display them pretty much right away, so there\u2019s going to be a decent library of shot-on-3D movies that will bring new life to them all. The 3D photos and videos you can take with Apple Vision Pro directly also look super great, but I wasn\u2019t able to test capturing any myself so I don\u2019t know how that will feel yet. Awkward? Hard to say.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


The setup is smooth and simple.<\/b> A couple of minutes and you\u2019re good to go. Very Apple.<\/span><\/p>\n


Yes, it does look that good.<\/strong> The output of the interface and the various apps are so good that Apple just used them directly off of the device in its keynote. The interface is bright and bold and feels present because of the way it interacts with other windows, casts shadows on the ground and reacts to lighting conditions.<\/p>\n


Overall, I\u2019m hesitant to make any broad claims about whether Apple Vision Pro is going to fulfill Apple\u2019s claims about the onset of spatial computing. I\u2019ve had far too little time with it and it\u2019s not even completed \u2014 Apple is still working on things like the light shroud and definitely on many software aspects.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


It is, however, really, really well done. The platonic ideal of an XR headset. Now, we wait to see what developers and Apple accomplish over the next few months and how the public reacts.<\/span><\/p>\n


\"Read<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"


OpenAI is still not training GPT-5, months after the Microsoft-backed startup pledged to not work on the successor to GPT-4\u00a0“for some time” after many industry executives and academics expressed concerns<\/a> about the fast-rate of advancements by Sam Altman’s large language models.<\/p>\n


“We have a lot of work to do before we start that model,” Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, said at a conference hosted by Indian newspaper Economic Times. “We’re working on the new ideas that we think we need for it, but we are certainly not close to it to start.”<\/p>\n


In late March, more than 1,100 signatories, including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, signed an open letter that calls on “all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”<\/p>\n


Weeks later, Altman said that the letter was “missing most technical nuance about where we need the pause,” but asserted that OpenAI had not started training GPT-5 — and didn’t plan to do so for “some time.”<\/p>\n


Altman on Wednesday pushed back again on the concerns from some of the most vocal voices on AI, saying the startup was already evaluating potential dangers with more meaningful measures such as\u00a0external audits and red-teaming and safety tests.<\/p>\n


“When we finished GPT-4, it took us more than six months until we were ready to release it.”<\/p>\n


Earlier in the interview, Altman also said that OpenAI was against regulating smaller AI startups. “The only regulation we have called for is on ourselves and people bigger,” Altman said.<\/p>\n


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GetHarley<\/a>, a platform that connects consumers with skincare clinicians and related products, has raised $52 million in a round of funding led by existing investor Index Ventures.<\/p>\n


Charmaine Chow<\/a>, GetHarley is a telehealth platform that gives anyone a direct channel to qualified skincare professionals, including dermatologists and plastic surgeons, who recommend products and treatments for conditions such as acne, uneven skin tone or hyperpigmentation, rosacea, melasma and more. Online consultations cost \u00a340 ($50) for 30 minutes, though where more complex medical histories are involved, patients can pay \u00a3150 ($186) for a more senior-level consultant dermatologist.<\/p>\n


Part of GetHarley’s business model involves selling skincare products as part of a personalized plan, catering to specific individual factors such as whether the individual has dry or oily skin, or how light \/ dark their skin is. Products may include anything from cleansers and serums to moisturizers and eye creams.<\/p>\n


GetHarley box. Image Credits:<\/strong> GetHarley<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

Skin in the game<\/h2>\n


was pegged as<\/a> a $130 billion industry in 2021, however, GetHarley positions itself in a narrower niche categorized as “medical-grade skincare” or “cosmeceuticals” as they’re sometimes called. These are sort of hybrids between cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, formulated with a “higher concentration of active ingredients” than what you might find in a store and are often only available through clinicians. This was estimated as a $45 billion industry<\/a> in 2021.<\/p>\n


<\/div>\n


“The skincare industry is overflowing with false claims, celebrity marketing and thousands upon thousands of choices about how to care for your skin,” Chow said in a press release. “You end up wasting huge amounts of time, money and energy trying to figure out what works for you. I should know — I looked everywhere for solutions for my challenging skin. And while consumers are being pulled in multiple directions, clinicians are time-poor and overstretched and you can never quite get hold of them. GetHarley solves all this, giving experts a one-stop platform, and helping global consumers get access to the best advice in a crowded marketplace.”<\/p>\n


Prior to now, GetHarley had raised around $15 million in funding, and in the four years since its foundation, the company says it has garnered some 100,000 active users and amassed a team of 70 — a figure it expects to double over the next year.<\/p>\n


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