Jeffery Clorissaint (MBA ’26) has been recognized as one of six Inno Under 25 honorees for 2025. The annual St. Louis Inno awards program for young entrepreneurs celebrates people early in their careers in innovation and entrepreneurship. Clorissaint has developed two startups, Menalated and Kayno Labs, during his time at WashU. Menalated, a hair growth oil for textured hair, won Catalyst funding through the Skandalaris Venture Competition last spring.
The following article was written by Samir Knox and published in St. Louis Inno on August 28, 2025.
At 24, Jeffrey Clorissaint has already founded two businesses. One is an artificial intelligence firm for data insights, called Kayno Labs. The other, called Menalated, is a brand specializing in hair growth products for men with textured hair.
He founded Menalated last summer, and Kayno Labs in June 2025. A current MBA student at Washington University, Clorissaint sells hair care products directly from Menalated’s website, including the hair oil developed by his mother. His mother, a hair chemist, aesthetician and entrepreneur, served as the inspiration for his business.
“Growing up, I saw firsthand the care and science she put into understanding hair, especially textured hair, and how important it was for people to feel confident in their appearance,” he said. “That foundation really shaped me.”
The size of either team fluctuates, he said. “We are intentionally staying lean and outsourcing where we can,” he said of Kayno Labs. Menalated has no outside funding, he said, and will only raise additional funding when consumer demand requires it.
Kayno Labs, on the other hand, is pursuing an up to $3 million pre-seed funding round once the company launches its beta version of the product.
What got you interested in your current ventures and when did you start? I started Menalated in June 2024 after experiencing hair loss early in life and becoming frustrated with the lack of effective haircare and hair growth products for textured hair. That personal challenge inspired me to create a brand delivering science-backed solutions tailored to the unique needs of textured hair.
A year later, in June 2025, I co-founded Kayno Labs with two close friends — Fortuna Kadima, a senior at WashU studying Computer Science, and Emmanuel Kudom, a Computer Science master’s student at Johns Hopkins University. Together, we launched Kayno Labs to build AI tools that turn fragmented, unstructured data into actionable insights, helping people and organizations make better and more equitable decisions.
What are some of your biggest accomplishments to date? For Kayno Labs, one of our biggest accomplishments is preparing to launch our Beta 1 version, which will be the first step in bringing our AI platform into the hands of users. For Menalated, a major milestone has been launching our products into our first retail location — Lake St. Louis Beauty Supply here in St. Louis — which represents an exciting step in growing our brand’s presence.
What are your plans for these businesses in the next year and onward? For Kayno Labs, our immediate focus is on reaching over 1 million users within the next 14 months. From there, we plan to expand our offerings to large corporations, helping them make faster, fairer, and more strategic decisions while saving companies billions each year by reducing missed insights, inefficiencies, and waste.
For Menalated, our goal over the next 24 months is to scale the brand to the point where we can secure distribution with major retailers like Walmart and Target, making effective, science-backed hair growth solutions for textured hair accessible on a national level.
How do you feel about the broader startup community in St. Louis? I feel very optimistic about the startup community in St. Louis, especially as a Black founder. When I moved here to attend WashU for my MBA, I didn’t expect to find such an innovative, diverse, and forward-looking ecosystem. I can see St. Louis becoming a Midwest version of Silicon Valley, with the city as the economic engine and WashU playing the role that Stanford did in fueling Silicon Valley’s innovation boom starting in the 1950s.
What advice do you have for other young entrepreneurs? For other young entrepreneurs, my advice is to trust your gut and your vision — don’t let youth or inexperience hold you back from building a game-changing company. Learn as you go, embrace mistakes as part of the process, and keep growing. I’m still learning myself. Remember, many of today’s top companies were started by founders in their twenties.
Your company has roots in your mother’s experience as a hair chemist and aesthetician, could you tell us more about that story? What does the mission of the company mean to you? Yes — Menalated’s roots go back to my mother, who worked as a hair chemist and aesthetician. Growing up, I saw firsthand the care and science she put into understanding hair, especially textured hair, and how important it was for people to feel confident in their appearance. That foundation really shaped me.
When I started experiencing hair loss myself, I realized the industry still lacked effective, science-driven solutions made specifically for textured hair. Menalated is my way of continuing her legacy — blending science with culture to create products that not only promote growth but also restore confidence.
For me, the mission isn’t just about selling products; it’s about helping people with textured hair feel seen, supported, and celebrated in a space that hasn’t always prioritized us.
Age: 24