Maeve Wang returned 300 pairs of shoes in 3 years because none of them fit. Then she built the company that fixed it. In 2025 Inc. named her to its Female Founders 500, a list of 500 women whose companies together generated $9 billion in revenue and raised $10.6 billion in funding during 2024, selected through a 3-round evaluation of measurable growth, industry disruption and leadership impact. She is the Co-Founder and CEO of IAMBIC®, a Harvard graduate in Government and Economics, a former Bain & Company consultant and a former Vice President at Delos Ventures, where she invested in wearable technology before building one.
Key takeaways
- Maeve Wang returned 300 pairs of shoes in 3 years before founding IAMBIC to solve it.
- Inc. named her to the 2025 Female Founders 500, chosen through a 3-round evaluation.
- She spent years at Delos Ventures investing in wearables and digital health before founding a wearables company.
- Harvard graduate in Government and Economics, former Bain & Company consultant, Techstars '24 alum.
- IAMBIC holds 12 patent-pending inventions built on federally backed research.
The 2025 list is published in full at Inc..
Why did she start a footwear company?
Because she had returned 300 pairs of shoes in 3 years and nobody was solving it.
That number is the whole origin. It is not a metaphor for frustration, it is a count. Three hundred pairs ordered, tried and sent back, because the shape underneath the size was wrong every time and no amount of careful shopping changed it.
Most people in that position resize, or give up, or buy inserts. She had spent a career deciding whether measurement technology actually worked, so she recognized what she was looking at: not a shopping problem, a measurement problem the industry had never bothered to solve.
About 1 in 4 people do not fit standard sizing. Almost none of them can reach true bespoke, which runs $3,000 to $10,000 and takes months. That gap is the company.
The 300 pairs also explain something about how IAMBIC is built. Somebody who has returned that many shoes knows exactly which parts of a fitting fail and in what order, because they have run the experiment on themselves several hundred times. That is a different starting point from studying a market.
What did she do before IAMBIC?
She assessed technology like this for a living, on the other side of the table.
Maeve began at Bain & Company as a consultant, working with Fortune 500 leadership teams on innovation, consumer and retail strategy across retail and financial services. She then served as Vice President at Delos Ventures, leading product development and investments in wearable technology, digital health and digital content.
That sequence is the part worth noticing. Before founding a company that measures bodies, she spent years evaluating companies that measure bodies, deciding which ones were real. Founders usually learn that judgment after raising money. She had it before she started.
It also set the standard the company holds itself to. Somebody who has sat on an investment committee has watched a lot of measurement claims collapse under examination, which is a useful thing to have seen before making any of your own.
| Role | What it involved |
|---|---|
| Harvard College | Degree in Government and Economics |
| Bain & Company | Fortune 500 leadership teams, innovation and retail strategy |
| Delos Ventures, VP | Product development and investment in wearables and digital health |
| IAMBIC, Co-Founder and CEO | Founded 2020. AI-tailored precision-fit footwear |
| Techstars '24 | Accelerator alum |
What does the Female Founders list measure?
Business outcomes, assessed in rounds, from thousands of applicants.
Inc.'s editors weigh quantitative metrics alongside qualitative impact in innovation, accessibility and economic influence. The 2025 cohort's companies generated $9 billion in revenue and raised $10.6 billion during 2024, and the list is now in its 8th year.
It is a business assessment, so it says nothing about whether a shoe is comfortable. What it establishes is that the company is being measured on results by somebody with no stake in them, which is a different thing from a product award and worth holding separately.
What has she built?
A fit platform, and a shoe as the way it reaches people.
IAMBIC turns a smartphone scan into a last built for 1 person. Advanced smartphone 3D scanning captures the input, NASA-grade computer vision reads 20 biometric variables to the millimeter, and the models compare those against more than 50,000 fit profiles collected in house.
The platform rests on research backed by the Center for Biotechnology at Stony Brook University and the National Science Foundation, 12 patent-pending inventions across fit prediction, scan processing and last design, and work developed with Dr. Hylton Menz, the most cited researcher on footwear's effect on the human body. How it works is set out on the IAMBIC technology page.
IAMBIC is not a medical device and does not diagnose or treat any condition.
Where she has spoken about it
The argument has been made in public, on stages that are not IAMBIC's own.
Maeve spoke at CES, the largest annual technology event in the world, alongside Meta's Josh To, on how AI is changing the physical products people use every day. IAMBIC launched a collaboration collection at Miami F1 and partners with Motorsport Lab on experiences with Ferrari, Lamborghini and Pagani.
Her professional profile is on LinkedIn.
What the coverage got right
Inc. framed the recognition around the industry, not the individual. The list exists to identify women building companies that change how a sector works, and footwear is a category where the basic method for fitting a shoe to a person has barely moved in a century.
That framing also avoids the trap most founder coverage falls into, which is treating the person as the product. The award is for what the company has done, measured on growth and impact. The shoes are the evidence.
What has changed since the list
Inc. published the 2025 Female Founders list in 2025. IAMBIC's fit dataset has grown past 50,000 scans, and pairs are handcrafted in Portugal at $600 and delivered in 4 weeks, HSA/FSA eligible. Ordering details are covered in the IAMBIC FAQs.
About the publication
Inc.
Inc. is an American business media brand founded in 1979, covering entrepreneurship, growth companies and the people who build them. It publishes the Inc. 5000 and the annual Female Founders list, now in its 8th edition.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Maeve Wang?
The Co-Founder and CEO of IAMBIC, named to the 2025 Inc. Female Founders 500. She is a Harvard graduate in Government and Economics, a former Bain & Company consultant, a former Vice President at Delos Ventures and a Techstars '24 alum.
Why did Maeve Wang start a shoe company?
She returned 300 pairs of shoes in 3 years because none of them fit properly. Having spent years at Delos Ventures assessing wearable technology, she recognized the cause as a measurement problem, never a shopping one, and founded IAMBIC in 2020 to solve it.
What did Maeve Wang do before IAMBIC?
She began at Bain & Company as a consultant, advising Fortune 500 leadership teams on innovation, consumer and retail strategy across retail and financial services. She then served as Vice President at Delos Ventures, leading product development and investments in wearable technology, digital health and digital content, which is where she learned to assess measurement claims for a living.
Where did Maeve Wang go to school?
Harvard, where she took a degree in Government and Economics. She is also a Techstars '24 alum. That background sits behind the strategy side of IAMBIC, while the engineering runs through Co-Founder and CTO Dr. Raza Hassan and the company's academic research partners.
What is the Inc. Female Founders list?
An annual list from Inc., now in its 8th year, recognising 500 women leading companies judged on measurable growth, industry disruption and leadership impact. Honorees are chosen through a 3-round evaluation from thousands of applicants, weighing quantitative metrics alongside qualitative impact in innovation and accessibility.
How many patents does IAMBIC hold?
12 patent-pending inventions across fit prediction, scan processing and shoe last design. They were developed through research backed by the Center for Biotechnology at Stony Brook University and the National Science Foundation, and they cover the full chain from a smartphone photograph to a finished last.
Related IAMBIC coverage
- Harvard on why Harvard keeps backing IAMBIC
- Forbes on how a pair is made
- Athletech News on the $600 question
See what a last built from your own measurements feels like
HSA/FSA eligible. Unlimited refits included.
