For thousands of years, braiding has been a manual craft. Passed down through generations, perfected in salons, and endured by anyone who has ever sat in a chair for six, eight, or even twelve hours while someone else’s hands worked magic on their scalp.
Yinka Ogunbiyi wants to change that. Not by replacing the braider, but by giving them a tool that could cut appointment times in half and save their hands in the process.
The Four-Day Braid That Started It All
The idea for HaloBraid was born during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Ogunbiyi, a Nigerian-American biomechanical engineer with a joint MS and MBA from Harvard, was stuck in her London apartment and decided to braid her own hair for the first time. It took her four days.
“I was not enjoying my job, neither mentally nor financially,” she told Punch. “I wanted to build something of my own”.
By the second day, her engineer’s brain kicked in. She started wondering why there was no machine to help with this. “Braiding hasn’t seen innovation since braiding was invented 5,000 years ago,” she later said. She partnered with co-founder David Afolabi, and HaloBraid was born.
What HaloBraid Actually Does
HaloBraid is not a fully autonomous salon robot. It is a collaborative tool, designed to work alongside professional stylists.
Here is how it works: The stylist sections the hair, determines the braid size and pattern, and starts each braid by hand. Then the braid is fed into HaloBraid, which handles the repetitive mid-shaft weaving. The stylist then finishes the braid, trims the ends, and styles it to the client’s preference.
The company says the device can complete individual braids up to five times faster than manual braiding. For a standard box braid style that might take six to eight hours, Ogunbiyi estimates it could bring that down to about two and a half to three hours.
It is designed for individual braids like box braids and knotless braids. It cannot do cornrows or styles braided directly against the scalp, because those require a different technique.
The Business Case
The numbers behind HaloBraid are significant.
In June 2026, the startup raised $7 million in seed funding in a round led by Seven Seven Six, the venture capital firm founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. AlleyCorp and Bling Capital also participated.
More than 7,000 professional salons are already on the waiting list.
Ohanian’s interest is personal. He is married to Serena Williams, and his daughters wear braided styles.
“I’ve studied exactly how long these braiding sessions take,” he told TechCrunch. “My oldest daughter loves the ritual for the first few hours, but by hour nine, everyone’s ready to call it a night”.
Ogunbiyi’s research found that people spend an estimated 8 billion hours braiding hair annually. In a survey of 2,000 people, 95% said they would get their hair braided more often if it took less time .
The Health Factor
Beyond convenience, HaloBraid addresses a real occupational hazard. Professional braiders face elevated rates of carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis, and chronic back pain from years of repetitive hand movements.
By automating the most physically demanding part of the process, HaloBraid aims to extend stylists’ careers and reduce strain on their bodies.
“I don’t think anything will get lost from the experience,” Ogunbiyi said. “If anything, it enriches it. Technology simply assists with the repetitive movements that consume the most time and place the greatest strain on the body”
What It Means for the Future
HaloBraid is not just a product. It is a signal.
The global hair industry is worth an estimated $42 billion. Yet tooling for textured hair has remained largely unexplored by major technology companies. As Ohanian put it, textured hair tech remains “unexplored despite a loyal audience that’s eager to spend”.
Ogunbiyi’s vision extends beyond braiding. She has said the team is already exploring a device that can undo braids, a process that can take nearly as long as the braiding itself.
“HaloBraid is our first product, but our larger vision is to create breakthrough technology that makes textured haircare faster, easier, more comfortable, and more joyful,” she said.
The Bottom Line
Yinka Ogunbiyi did not set out to build a robot. She set out to solve a problem she had lived with her entire life. The result is a device that could fundamentally change how braiding works: by replacing the hands that do it, but by giving those hands more time, less pain, and a future that does not end with arthritis at 40.
