Harry’s raising $112 million to move beyond shaving

The founders of Harry’s turned their company into a fast-growing competitor to established giants like Gillette in the $2.4 billion shaving industry.

Now they want to take on Gillette’s parent company, Procter & Gamble.

Harry’s plans to announce soon that it has raised $112 million in a new round of financing, money its leaders said would help the company develop brands beyond men’s grooming.

“We’ve built a lot of infrastructure at Harry’s that we think we can leverage into new categories,” Jeff Raider, one of Harry’s founders, said in a phone interview. “It’s something that we’ve been excited about for a long time, and we’re now at a point in our business where we can act on it.”

It is the latest effort by the company’s founders and co-chief executives, Raider and Andy Katz-Mayfield, to build out their business at a time when younger, internet-savvy consumer companies are taking market share away from incumbents like Procter & Gamble and Unilever.

Frustrated with the costs of traditional disposable razors, Katz-Mayfield and Raider, childhood friends who previously worked together at the consulting firm Bain & Co., founded the company nearly five years ago. They modelled Harry’s after Warby Parker, the hip glasses purveyor that Raider helped found.

Harry’s, as well as Dollar Shave Club, has used a subscription model and savvy marketing to sell directly to younger customers over the internet and gain market share from Gillette and Schick.

Harry’s has used the millions in venture capital funding to buy the German factory that makes its razor blades and expand into other skin care products. The company also started selling its products in Target and other stores. The two founders said Harry’s was on track to become profitable this year.

Now Raider and Katz-Mayfield want to apply the lessons they have learned to consumer goods like personal care for men and women, household items and baby products.

Already, Harry’s has taken a minority stake in Hims, a startup that makes men’s hair-loss products, and it intends to buy majority ownership in other brands.

MICHAEL NAGLE NEW YORK TIMES Products are displayed inside a bricks-and-mortar store in New York for Harry’s, the online purveyor of subscription shaving razors and other grooming items for men.