Here is a fact that the entire beauty industry knows and almost no company wants to build a storefront around: nearly everyone, eventually, loses some hair. It is about as universal as a market gets. It is also, historically, a category sold in the register of shame - furtive supplements, back-of-the-magazine transplant ads, a whispered aisle at the pharmacy. Great Many's founding bet is that the whisper was the whole problem.
A great many people, one very ordinary problem
Great Many opened its first studio in June 2024 on Mulberry Street in NoHo, and the pitch is refreshingly literal. Hair loss is a health condition. Health conditions get assessed by a clinician, diagnosed with actual instruments, and treated with a plan. So that is what happens: you sit down, someone looks at your scalp under microscopic follicle imaging, and you leave with a regimen rather than a vague sense of dread.
The economics here are the interesting part. A hair transplant is a surgery - high-stakes, one-time, expensive, and easy to be embarrassed about. Great Many instead sells repeatable, lower-drama in-studio treatments: platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and low-level laser therapy, roughly $495 a session, or bundled together for about $660. This is the express-facial model applied to follicles, which is not a coincidence, because one of the founders invented the express-facial model.
The company reports having performed more than 5,000 treatments and says 85% of clients saw improvement within three months. Those are the company's own figures, and worth reading the way you read any founder's stat - as a claim the company is willing to stand behind, not an audited result. But the direction of travel is clear enough: people will book a scalp consult with the same shrug they book a haircut, if you build the room to make that feel normal.
What makes the model coherent is that the studio is not the whole business. It is the front door. Behind it sits a telehealth arm for remote consults and prescriptions, and a shelf of consumer products - which means a client acquired for a $34 shampoo can, over time, become a client for a $495 session, or vice versa. Great Many built a ladder, and gave people a first rung.
Great Many blends the most advanced hair-growth technology available with individualized care to create proven treatment plans overseen by leading hair-loss medical experts.
Two beauty veterans who left the easy categories
Michael Pollak
Co-founded Heyday, the express-facial chain, in 2014 - before the category attracted multimillion-dollar checks - and stepped away in 2022 with the business heading toward dozens of locations. He could have coasted. Instead he picked the single most awkward corner of beauty and pointed the same playbook at it: fast, friendly, expert, repeatable.
Steve Klebanow
Former VP of global omnichannel at Estee Lauder, and part owner of the barbershop Haar & Co. He brings the retail-and-distribution half of the equation - the machinery of getting a product line into a lot of hands - to a company that needs to be both a clinic and a brand at the same time.
The menu
PRP Hair Restoration
Platelet-rich plasma treatment to stimulate follicles, guided by a scalp assessment and microscopic imaging.
Laser Restoration
Low-level laser therapy using what the company describes as the first and only FDA-cleared laser for hair growth.
PRP + Laser Bundle
Both treatments in one visit for clients pursuing a maximal in-studio regimen.
Telehealth
Virtual consults and access to prescription hair-loss treatments beyond the physical studios.
The Product Line
Shampoo, conditioner, growth serum and exfoliating serum on a proprietary six-ingredient growth-factor formula - micro algae, gotu kola, saw palmetto and more.
Scalp Assessment
An in-depth, clinician-led scalp health assessment with follicle imaging that anchors every personalized plan.
$3.6M, oversubscribed by $600K
A pre-seed round that came in $600K over target - a small but telling signal that investors like the "hair loss is a normal health category" framing. Led by BrandProject, with Midnight Venture Partners and Tonic Ventures, plus angels.
No one has figured out yet how to speed up hair growth - results can take six to nine months, though great responders may see faster.
How it scaled
The details that stick
- The founder of an express-facial empire pivoted from skin to scalp - same store format, harder taboo.
- The growth serum leans on ingredients you'd expect in a smoothie, not a scalp: micro algae, gotu kola, saw palmetto.
- One angel investor, Meghan Maupin, runs OurX - a nominal competitor in the same space, now backing Great Many.
- The studios scale like fitness clubs, not surgical centers - which is the whole reason the model can travel city to city.
- Great Many refuses to niche down: all genders, all ages, all hair types. In a shame-based category, the universal market is the underserved one.
Who else is in the room
Great Many is not alone - it is arriving into a crowded hallway that includes DTC telehealth players like Hims & Hers and Keeps, supplement brands like Nutrafol, legacy operators like Hair Club and Bosley, hair-tech upstart OurX, and the entire universe of dermatology and transplant clinics. What differentiates Great Many is the stack: it is trying to be the clinic, the telehealth service, and the product shelf at once, using the physical studio as the trust-building front door that the pure-DTC brands don't have. Whether owning all three layers is an advantage or an overreach is the open question - and the reason this company is worth watching.