HaloBraid develops a robotic braiding assistant that allows a stylist to start a braid and hand off the remainder of the process to the device, which can finish braids in seconds. The company’s first product is designed to be gentle on textured hair and to handle styles such as knotless and box braids, with a planned launch later this year. HaloBraid was founded by Yinka Ogunbiyi and has a team of about 15 people; it raised a $7M seed round led by Seven Seven Six. In customer research of 2,000 people the company found 95% said they would get braided more often if it took less time, and it estimates people spend roughly 8 billion hours braiding hair each year. The startup faces few direct competitors in the automated-braider space (notably Braidiant) and is already considering additional devices such as a tool to undo braids.

Total raised

$7M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Jun 2026