Futuristic Laser Razor Banned from Kickstarter After Raising $4 Million

October 14, 2015

A Kickstarter campaign for a laser razor that raised over $4 million in funding was cancelled because it does not exist in a working form.

The company, Skarp Technologies, will not see a single penny of its funding as Kickstarter said in a letter that “backers will not be charged for their pledges.” Skarp Technologies, which raised a whopping $750,000 during the first week of its crowdfunding campaign, was cited by Kickstarter for failing to have a working prototype.

The letter from Kickstarter addressed to funders of the laser razor read:

“This is a message from Kickstarter’s Integrity team. We’re writing to notify you that the Skarp Laser Razor project has been suspended, and your pledge has been canceled

After requesting and reviewing additional material from the creator of the project, we’ve concluded that it is in violation of our rule requiring working prototypes of physical products that are offered as rewards. Accordingly, all funding has been stopped and backers will not be charged for their pledges. No further action is required on your part. Suspensions cannot be undone.

We take the integrity of the Kickstarter system very seriously. We only suspend projects when we find evidence that our rules are being violated.”

In an email sent to Mashable, the company responded:

“We’ve been incredibly clear from the start that our prototype is exactly that. To produce the shaving results we discuss in our presentation, we require a high performance precision manufactured fiber. We have taken our prototype as far as we can before mass production and that is why we are on Indiegogo.”

Skarp has since taken their invention to Indiegogo, Kickstarter’s rival site, and raised over $100,000 within the first 10 hours. They have currently reached $240,000 in funding at the time of this article’s publication.

The razor was available as a perk to initial Indiegogo funders who contributed as little as $89. The product has an estimated delivery date of March 2016.

The founder of the laser razor, Morgan Gustavsson, patented the intense pulsed light used in hair removal and dermatology treatments, their Indiegogo page reads.

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