# Building business software since 2014 — Hanzo AI

> Hanzo is the AI operating system for business: AI in commercial use since 2014, the first blockchain-native commerce platform in 2017, Techstars '17, and hundreds of venture-funded startups served, two of which went public.

Techstars '17

# Building business software since 2014. Now the AI operating system for business.

Started in 2014 with SKULLY and open-source commerce, through Techstars ’17, Zoo Labs Foundation in 2021, to 1600+ open repositories and the sovereign AI cloud today. Led by CEO Antje Worring and CTO Zach Kelling.

[Book a call](https://cal.com/hanzo)[Explore the journey](#timeline)[Open Source & Research](https://hanzo.ai/oss)[The Zen of Hanzo](https://hanzo.ai/zen)

100+Startups Built & Funded

$1B+Revenue Generated

9Unicorns

2IPO Exits

1600+Open Repositories

Track record

## Twelve years of shipping for venture-funded companies

2014Building business software since 2014, with AI and machine learning in commercial use from the start and GPT models in production by 2019. Founded as Crowdstart and renamed Hanzo in 2016. The first customer, SKULLY, raised $1M in about 45 hours, the fastest fully funded campaign on Indiegogo.

[TechCrunch, 2014](https://techcrunch.com/2014/08/14/the-skully-smart-helmet-is-the-fastest-funded-indiegogo-campaign-to-hit-1m/) · [SKULLY](https://hanzo.ai/customers#skully)

120,000 ETHThe first blockchain-native commerce platform, 2017: the Unikrn ICO raised over 120,000 ETH.

[Crunchbase News, 2017](https://news.crunchbase.com/startups/found-ico-makes-sense/) · [Unikrn on Hanzo](https://hanzo.ai/customers#unikrn)

2 went publicDamon Motorcycles and Triller, two of the companies Hanzo built with, listed on Nasdaq in 2024.

[Damon (DMN)](https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/news/95a8e26f/norton-rose-fulbright-advises-grafiti-holding-inc-in-its-business-combination-with-damon-motors-inc) · [Triller (ILLR)](https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/agba-completes-merger-triller-2024-10-15) · [Case studies](https://hanzo.ai/customers#damon-motorcycles)

HundredsHundreds of venture-funded startups, backed by Y Combinator, 500 Startups, Techstars and other tier-1 firms: billions in client revenue, and two companies taken past 100 million users.

[Customers](https://hanzo.ai/customers)

Techstars '17Selected for Techstars in 2017 to build intelligent commerce: analytics, marketing and commerce on one learning engine.

[hanzo.blog, 2017](https://hanzo.blog/2017-06-08-techstars-17/) · [Startland News, 2017](https://startlandnews.com/2017/10/techstars-spotlight-hanzos-e-commerce-tools-designed-to-make-you-money/)

## Twelve years of engineering

Built and invested in over 100 startups, generating over $1B in revenue, 9 unicorns, and 2 IPO exits. From our first customer SKULLY in 2014 to the sovereign AI cloud today.

- ### 2014 $5.8M Raised · Indiegogo #1 #### SKULLY & Open-Source Commerce Hanzo was founded in 2014. First customer: SKULLY, pioneering the world’s first AI and augmented reality heads-up display motorcycle helmet.Raised $2.5M on Indiegogo and $3.3M directly on Hanzo, reaching tens of millions of people worldwide with embedded spatial computer vision and real-time telematics.Open-sourced hanzoai/commerce as one of our earliest public repositories, establishing our decade-long commitment to open infrastructure.Launch · 2014$5.8M Raised · #1 Campaign ##### SKULLY AR Helmet Spatial computing, heads-up display telemetry, and computer vision interface reaching tens of millions.SKULLY Case Studyhanzoai/commerce (GitHub)
- ### 2015 250k Signups · Health Wearables #### Bellabeat AI Wearables for Women Partnered with Bellabeat to architect their women’s health AI wearable platform and data infrastructure.Collected 250,000 email signups and tens of thousands of pre-orders at launch, establishing their wearable platform and data infrastructure.Launch · 2015250k Signups · Health Platform ##### Bellabeat Health Platform AI-driven biometric tracking and personalized wellness wearables scaled to millions of connected devices.Bellabeat Case StudyAgency Story
- ### 2016 Zero Press · $1.5M/Mo #### KANOA Smart Audio & Earbuds Launched KANOA, pioneering early true wireless smart earbuds.Launched without press coverage, relying exclusively on Hanzo’s data + AI engine to collect 50,000 pre-orders and scale smoothly from zero to $1.5M/month month-over-month ($10M+ total).Launch · 2016$1.5M/Mo · $10M+ Sales ##### KANOA Wireless Audio Early true wireless earbuds powered entirely by Hanzo data & autonomous audience segmentation.KANOA Case StudyCustomer Portfolio
- ### 2017 120k ETH · Regulated ICO #### Unikrn 120,000 ETH ICO & Techstars Engineered the token launch for Unikrn (Unikoin Gold), the first regulated esports bookmaker, raising over 120,000 ETH from the public across 15+ jurisdictions before its acquisition by Entain.Selected for Techstars ’17 (Boulder/NYC), architecting distributed infrastructure for smart contract auditing and cryptographic settlement.Consensus · 2017120k ETH Raised · Acquired ##### Unikrn (Unikoin Gold) Regulated Ethereum token economy with multi-jurisdiction compliance and automated verification.Unikrn Case StudyAgency StoryTechstars '17 Announcement
- ### 2018 SEC Approved · $650M ATH #### Arca SEC Stablecoin & Casper Network Arca: Launched the first SEC-approved interest-bearing stablecoin, scaling institutional assets under management to $500M+ by 2021.Casper Labs: Co-designed architecture, led the Rust pivot, and launched the network as founding members of DEVxDAO (early Swiss DAO). CSPR reached an all-time-high market cap of $650M.Institutional Web3 · 2018$500M+ AUM · $650M ATH ##### Arca Stablecoin & Casper Blockchain First SEC-regulated interest-bearing digital asset ($500M+ AUM) and enterprise proof-of-stake blockchain.Arca Case StudyCasper Case StudyCasper Agency Story
- ### 2019 CES Best of Innovation · IPO #### Damon Electric Hypersport & CoPilot Radar Engineered the digital platform and edge telematics for Damon Motorcycles, generating $8.4M in sales in month one and exceeding $100M+ in total sales leading to IPO.Powered the sub-50ms CoPilot 360° radar collision warning system, winning CES Best of Innovation in 2020 and 2022.EV & Edge AI · 2019$100M+ Sales · IPO ##### Damon Motorcycles Sub-50ms radar edge telematics and 500x ROI launch campaign for next-gen electric superbikes.Damon Case StudyAgency Story
- ### 2020 169M+ Viewers · 82M MAU #### TrillerFest & Planetary Scale Streaming Architected low-latency global ingress for Triller, delivering TrillerFest to over 169M live viewers worldwide.Scaled platform infrastructure as monthly active users grew past 82M, powering creator distribution toward public listing (IPO).Global Media · 2020169M+ Viewers · 82M MAU ##### Triller & TrillerFest Largest virtual streaming event in history with high-concurrency real-time audience distribution.Triller Case StudyTrillerfest Agency Story
- ### 2021 $2.7B+ ATH Market Cap #### Zoo Labs Foundation & Decentralized AI Founded Zoo Labs Foundation as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research institution dedicated to decentralized AI research and open foundation models.Completed a $5M+ token sale for early AI blockchain compute, with ZOO market cap reaching an all-time high of $2.7B+. Built the Gym distributed training platform and DSO protocol ($18 per model adaptation).Decentralized AI · 2021$2.7B+ ATH Market Cap ##### Zoo Labs Foundation 501(c)(3) non-profit AI research network, Gym training cluster, and community ZIPs governance.Zoo Labs Case StudyAgency StoryZoo Labs NGOResearch Papers
- ### 2022 $2.4B+ ATH Market Cap #### LUX Post-Quantum Consensus Network Engineered LUX Network, a high-speed post-quantum blockchain architecture with sub-second finality.Raised $10M+ in token sale, reaching an all-time-high market cap of $2.4B+, establishing foundational cryptographic primitives used across Hanzo KMS.Post-Quantum · 2022$2.4B+ ATH Market Cap ##### LUX Network Quantum-resistant consensus and high-throughput transaction pipelines.LUX Case StudyLUX Network
- ### 2023 3.4× Lift · AI Personalization #### Predictive Commerce & Autonomous Merchandising Scaled predictive AI commerce with Karma Fashion, generating a 3.4× campaign growth lift and automated neural personalization for direct-to-consumer retail.Integrated real-time semantic discovery and autonomous merchandising workflows across next-generation commerce brands.Commerce AI · 20233.4× Growth Lift ##### Karma Fashion AI-driven crowdfunding and dynamic neural personalization that catalyzed retail growth.Karma Case StudyCustomer Portfolio
- ### 2024 12M Items / Day · 400% Engagement #### Multimodal Social Discovery & Real-Time AI Moderation Deployed Zen multimodal vision and text models to process 12M daily content items for Keek with sub-second latency.Adapted the EARLE recommendation architecture for large-scale social discovery, driving a 400% increase in content engagement and 85% reduction in harmful content reach.Multimodal AI · 202412M Items / Day ##### Keek Social Platform Multimodal content understanding and real-time safety pipeline processing 12M items daily.Keek Case StudyCustomer Portfolio
- ### 2025 13 HIP-0300 Tools · 260+ Tools #### The Agent Protocol (MCP) & Computer Control Pioneered the Model Context Protocol (MCP) ecosystem, standardizing 260+ tools across 13 HIP-0300 unified primitives with automatic ZAP service bridging.Released Operative for multimodal computer use, Hanzo Dev for autonomous terminal coding, and the cross-platform Hanzo Desktop app.Protocol Milestone · 2025260+ Tools ##### Hanzo MCP & Operative Native agent protocol exposing every cloud subsystem as an executable tool with browser and OS control.Operative LaunchMCP Tools EcosystemHanzo Dev
- ### 2026 Zen 4 – Zen 7 · Sovereign Stack #### The Sovereign AI Cloud & Frontier Zen Family Released the frontier Zen model family: Zen 4 in February, Zen 5 in May, Zen 6 and Zen 6 Flash in September, with Zen 7 research preview underway.Introduced original reasoning architectures Enso and Kai multimodal intelligence, powered by the C/CUDA/Metal Hanzo Engine, distributed Hanzo Base, and sovereign Hanzo KMS key custody on api.hanzo.ai.Sovereign Cloud · 2026131k Context ##### Zen, Enso & Sovereign Stack Full sovereign AI cloud: low-level C/CUDA/Metal engine, private KMS custody, and frontier foundation models.Zen 4 LaunchIntroducing EnsoExplore ModelsSovereign Cloud

## The Zen of Hanzo

The principles the company argues from when a decision is close.

### Enable the Underdog

Enable others to win. Democratize technology so small businesses and startups can compete with industry giants.

### Data-Driven Everything

Let data be your guide. Embrace analytics and AI as the foundation of decision-making.

### Open Innovation

Be open, share often. Openness accelerates growth—both for the company and its community.

### Adaptability

Pivot with purpose. There is no failure, only feedback. Move quickly and strike in new directions when opportunity calls.

### Customer-Centric Growth

Coach clients like a sensei. Treat each client as a long-term partner and guide them to success.

### First Principles Thinking

See the invisible, do the impossible. Boil problems down to their essence and solve them in fundamentally better ways.

[Explore the full Zen manifesto](https://hanzo.ai/philosophy)

Principles in Practice

## The Sensei Method

The Zen of Hanzo is what we believe. The Sensei Method is what an engagement looks like — Sensei Group sits with your team and works the problem alongside them.

### Identify First-Principle Goals

Drill down to the fundamental objectives that drive real value.

### Rapid Prototyping

Build quickly, test assumptions, and iterate with purpose.

### Data-Driven Decisions

Measure impact, analyze patterns, and let insights guide strategy.

### Sensei Mentorship

Work directly with expert “senseis” to implement and refine your approach.

[Visit Sensei Group](https://sensei.group)

Sensei MethodStrategy → Execution

### The Impact of Sensei

Through the Sensei Method and Hanzo engineering, our team has built and invested in over 100 startups, generating over $1B in revenue, 9 unicorns, and 2 IPO exits.

$1B+Revenue Generated

100+Startups Built

9Unicorns

2IPO Exits

Hanzo AI is led by CEO [Antje Worring](https://www.linkedin.com/in/antje-worring/) ([GitHub](https://github.com/zooqueen)) and CTO [Zach Kelling](https://www.linkedin.com/in/zeekay/) ([GitHub](https://github.com/zeekay)). Company information, governance, and investor contact are on [the investor page](https://hanzo.ai/investors).

Hanzo voice speech recognition uses NVIDIA Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 ([https://huggingface.co/nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3](https://huggingface.co/nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3)) by NVIDIA, licensed under CC BY 4.0 ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)). The model was converted to ONNX and quantized to 8-bit integers by the k2-fsa sherpa-onnx project.