The 100 Highest-Funded MBA Startups Of 2026

As a mechanical engineer, I was struck by the repetitive nature of the task. Starting the braid was an art-form—and really difficult—but finishing the braid felt like sewing by hand instead of using a machine. I found myself wondering why there wasn’t a device to help people with braiding, especially because it’s now the most popular hairstyle among Black women.’ – HBS MBA Yinka Ogunbiy, founder of Halo Braid

23 STARTUPS CO-FOUNDED BY WOMEN

Halo Braid, No. 91 on the list, grew out of a personal frustration. During the COVID-19 lockdown in the U.K., Harvard MBA Yinka Ogunbiy tried braiding her own hair for the first time. It took four days.

“As a mechanical engineer, I was struck by the repetitive nature of the task. Starting the braid was an art-form—and really difficult—but finishing the braid felt like sewing by hand instead of using a machine,” Ogunbiyi told Poets&Quants in her 2023 Most Disruptive MBA Startups interview.

“I found myself wondering why there wasn’t a device to help people with braiding, especially because it’s now the most popular hairstyle among Black women.”

Ogunbiyi and co-founder David Afolabi, HBS MBA, set out to create an automated hair-braiding device designed to cut hours down to minutes. With no existing machine to simply improve upon, the team brought together mechanical, electrical and robotics engineers, designers and professional braiders, eventually building more than 100 prototypes. Ogunbiyi has described Halo Braid as “a deep tech startup with a beauty finish.”

Ogunbiyi credits HBS classmates and alumni with helping Halo Braid find team members, customers, advisors and investors, while courses gave her practical lessons in fundraising, financial planning, marketing and startup operations. The company also won $80,000 through the HBS New Venture Competition and tapped Harvard’s i-Lab and Boston’s hardware startup community as it developed its prototypes. Halo Braid has raised $7.2 million to date.

The startup is one of 23 on this year’s list to be founded or co-founded by women, collectively raising $865.6 million. That’s up from 21 founders in 2025 which raised $523 million over the past five years.

Four of the five highest-funded female-founded startups are new to our list.

• HOPO Therapeutics (No. 5), co-founded by UC Berkeley Haas MBA/MPH Hannah Weber, is credited with $226 million in funding and contracts, including a BARDA contract worth up to $226 million announced in 2024.
• cAMPfield Therapeutics (No. 9), founded by Stanford GSB MBA Siyu Shi, is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing oral treatments for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. Its lead drug candidate is being developed to treat inflammatory bowel disease. Founded in 2025, cAMPfield has raised $180 million.
• Tabs (No. 12), co-founded by Columbia Business School MBA Rebecca Schwartz, uses AI to automate billing, collections, revenue recognition, and other financial operations for businesses. The New York startup, founded in 2023, has raised $92 million.
• Terradot (No. 21), co-founded by Stanford GSB MBA Julia Marisa Sekula in 2022 raised $58.2 million and operates in both the U.S. and Brazil.
• StoReel (No. 34), co-founded by Columbia Business School MBA Angela Yu, is an AI-powered entertainment platform for creating and watching short-form serialized dramas. Its app features bite-sized episodes and interactive AI characters, while its technology helps creators produce stories using AI. The Beijing-based startup, founded in 2024, has raised $34 million.

In capital raised over five years, Stanford GSB led all schools with 9.5 women-founded startups on the 2026 list, collectively accounting for about $355.4 million in funding when the funding for Plenna is shared with Harvard Business School is divided between the two schools.

Harvard had the most companies, however, with 10.5 women-founded startups worth about $142.9 million. UC Berkeley Haas had just one, but HOPO Therapeutics’ $226 million haul put Haas second in total funding. Columbia Business School’s two startups raised a combined $126 million.

NEXT PAGE: P&Q’s 100 Highest Funded MBA Startups Of 2025

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