Engineer and entrepreneur Yinka Ogunbiyi is preparing to take her braiding device, HaloBraid, to professional salons. This follows the $75,000 grand prize it won at Harvard University’s 2025 President’s Innovation Challenge.
Ogunbiyi, who holds a joint MS/MBA from Harvard (class of 2023), won the Alumni and Affiliates Open track and received the prize at Harvard Business School’s Klarman Hall from Harvard President Alan M. Garber. The award was made in May 2025, and she shared it with her co-founder, David Afolabi. She had also won an Ingenuity Award for early-stage start-ups at the same competition in 2023.
HaloBraid is an automated braid-assist device. A stylist starts the braid by hand, and the device completes it. The company says it is built to match the stylist’s technique at up to five times the usual speed.
Ogunbiyi said the devices had completed thousands of braids and full hairstyles over the past year, and that the team uses machine learning to achieve professional-quality results. The founders built more than 500 prototypes before settling on the final design.
Ogunbiyi first had the idea in 2020, when she tried to braid her own hair for the first time. The process took her four days during the COVID-19 lockdown.
She also points to the physical cost for stylists. The company says the device can reduce strain, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and back pain, and help salons take on more clients each day. “Braiding hasn’t seen innovation since braiding was invented 5000 years ago,” Ogunbiyi said.
Her case to investors rests on demand. “There’s untapped demand for braiding, and the limit is time,” she said.
A video of her pitch drew 4.9 million views on Instagram and TikTok. Harvard’s earlier finalist announcement named a third co-founder, Christian Knight.
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The company has raised more than $7 million and has more than 7,000 salons on a waiting list. BeautyMatter reports that Halo closed an oversubscribed funding round earlier than expected.
Hairstylist Vernon François has joined the company as Creative Engineer. “I am exactly where I am supposed to be,” he said in a statement.
HaloBraid is set to launch commercially in autumn 2026, starting with select professional salons. Pricing has not been set, but Ogunbiyi says stylists will not have to pay for the device upfront. “Most people don’t have six hours in their day to sit in a chair,” she said.
