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Skarp
close shave

A futuristic razor that shaves hair with a laser was just banned by Kickstarter after raising €3.5 million

But don’t worry, it’s not dead yet.

THE DREAM OF the Skarp razor, which its creators said could shave your hair with a laser, was a powerful one. The Kickstarter project sped past its initial goal of €140,000 and racked up an astounding €3.5 million.

But it seems that dream might have been too good to be true, at least from Kickstarter’s perspective. The crowdfunding site has officially booted the project from its platform for not presenting evidence of a working prototype.

In short, the service is afraid it’s a scam.

The Register obtained an email sent to backers by Kickstarter that reads, “We’ve concluded that it is in violation of our rule requiring working prototypes of physical products that are offered as rewards,” and it further goes on to say “suspensions cannot be undone.”

Though the Skarp creators did provide a video of a “prototype,” it seems to have not been high-quality enough to pass Kickstarter’s threshold of acceptability. You can see its rudimentary shaving in the video below. While it does succeed in zapping some hairs into oblivion, it certainly doesn’t seem practical for any sort of everyday use.

Skarp Technologies / YouTube

But lest you were worried that the two Swedes who started the project would let their laser-shaving ambitions die, they have already moved onto another crowdfunding platform, Indiegogo.

The new project raised over $62,000 in six hours.

Read: One of the best-funded Kickstarter projects of all time is… something akin to a Swiss Army Jacket

Read: The incredibly stressful launch of an Irish company’s high-tech stress-beating device

Published with permission from
Business Insider
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