Box. Boho. No knots. Most black women understand exactly what these words refer to: braided hairstyles. The millennia-old ritual is practically a rite of passage, and many black women and girls even today sit in salon chairs for up to 12 hours at a stretch as a stylist weaves designs into their hair.
But that’s also the problem. For thousands of years, hair braiding has been a manual job. Until recently that is. Speaking to TechCrunch, Yinka Ogunbiyi recalled when she was stuck alone in her London flat during the COVID-19 pandemic and tried to braid her own hair: “It took me four days,” she said.
Ogunbiyi, who has an engineering degree from Harvard as well as an MBA, had previously founded a smart kitchen appliance company and began looking at knitting as a technical problem to be solved.
After years of research, on Tuesday, a robotics startup launched: HelloBraid aims to help salons speed up braiding with its first device, due out later this year, that acts as a braiding assistant for professional stylists. The company has raised $7 million in a seed round led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm Seven Seven Six.
Ogunbiyi didn’t go into much detail about the device, as she said there are still patents pending, but she explained how it works: A stylist starts the braiding, then hands off the process to HaloBraid, which can complete the rest of the braid in seconds. She noted that the product is meant to be gentle on the hair and that it can help finish both knot-free and braided braids.
In her research, Ogunbiyi found that people spend about 8 billion hours braiding hair each year. She said that in her survey of 2,000 people, 95% said they would braid their hair more often if it took less time. Stylists, meanwhile, have to work long hours and can struggle health issues such as carpal tunnel or arthritis.
For Ohanian, it was clear that there is a sizable market and potential returns for a device that can make knitting easier.
Ohanian is married to Serena Williams, a black woman famous for some of her braided hairstyles on the tennis court. She also has two black children who wear knit styles. “I’ve studied exactly how long these braiding sessions take,” she told TechCrunch, adding, “My oldest daughter loves the ritual in the wee hours, but by nine o’clock, everyone’s ready to call it a night.”
He noted how Dyson has helped transform hair styling tools (such as with its famous hair dryer) while texturizing hair technology remains unexplored “despite a loyal public willing to spend”.
“This is the hardware moment,” he continued, citing other investments he has made, including rocket company Stoke and asteroid mining company AstroForge. “An automated braider has a great build feel. This product is truly differentiated, with a clear market presence.”
Other investors in the seed round include AlleyCorp and Bling Capital. The startup will use the new funding for product development, manufacturing and securing partnerships with salons.
HaloBraid doesn’t have many competitors in the hair braiding device market, most notably Braidiant. Ogunbiyi said one reason it has been so difficult to innovate in this space is that hair itself is quite difficult to deal with, especially when it comes to such a complex process as braiding. In fact, he said that hair is one of the “most difficult substrates in the world to manipulate” and that he had to borrow methods from different industries, from materials science to inkjet printing, to make this device.
Armed with fresh cash and validation, now the startup must make it through launch day. But Ogunbiyi said she and her team of about 15 are already thinking of other devices to build, such as one that can untie braids (a process that can often take as much time as the braiding itself).
“HaloBraid is our first product, but our bigger vision is to create breakthrough technology that makes textured grooming faster, easier, more comfortable and happier,” she said.
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