# History & Track Record — Hanzo AI — Hanzo AI > Explore Hanzo's full history: from SKULLY, open-source commerce, and Techstars '17 to 1,600+ open repositories, 9 unicorns, 2 IPO exits, and the sovereign AI cloud. Techstars ’17 # Sovereign intelligence since 2014. From open-source commerce and early AI head-up displays with SKULLY in 2014, through Techstars ’17 and over $1B in venture-backed client revenue, to 1,600+ repositories and sovereign intelligence today. [Explore Our History](#timeline)[About Hanzo](https://hanzo.ai/about)[Open Source](https://hanzo.ai/oss) 2014 – 2016 ## Hardware AI & Open Commerce SKULLY AR-1 head-up display sets crowdfunding speed records; open-source commerce powers global launches. 2017 – 2019 ## Techstars ’17 & Applied AI Graduated Techstars Kansas City ’17, scaling venture-backed consumer, media, and infrastructure partners. 2020 – 2023 ## Unicorns, IPOs & Cloud Scale Supported Damon Motors, Bellabeat, Triller, Cover, and Casperlabs across hypergrowth and public exits. 2024 – 2026 ## Sovereign AI Cloud & Research 1,600+ open repositories, Zen models, Kai calibrated decision intelligence, Enso router, and Hanzo Engine. Track record ## Shipping for venture-funded companies since 2014 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 across regulated jurisdictions. [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/) 1600+ reposOpen-source from the start: hanzoai/commerce in 2014, followed by 1600+ public repositories across C/CUDA/Metal runtimes, MCP servers, agent SDKs, and HIP standards. [github.com/hanzoai ↗](https://github.com/hanzoai)[Open Source ↗](https://hanzo.ai/oss) Full History ## Year by year: 2014 to today Built and invested in over 100 startups, generating over $1B in client revenue, 9 unicorns, and 2 IPO exits — from our first customer SKULLY to the sovereign AI cloud today. - ### 2014 $5.8M Raised · Indiegogo #1 #### SKULLY & Open-Source Commerce 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 long-term 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 analytics stack.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 ($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 · Techstars ’17 #### Unikrn 120,000 ETH ICO & Techstars ’17 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 · Enso & Kai #### 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 calibrated discrete decision intelligence, powered by the C/CUDA/Metal Hanzo Engine, distributed Hanzo Base, and sovereign Hanzo KMS key custody on api.hanzo.ai.Sovereign Cloud · 2026Sub-25ms Kai · 131k Context ##### Zen, Enso, Kai & Sovereign Stack Full sovereign AI cloud: bare-metal C/CUDA/Metal engine, private KMS custody, and frontier foundation & decision models.Zen 4 LaunchIntroducing EnsoExplore ModelsSovereign Cloud Operating Principles ## 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 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) ## Hanzo FDE Forward deployed engineers who work from inside your team: your people, your systems, your data, on Hanzo’s platform. 01 ### Embedded Engineers join your team, in your tools and on your cadence. 02 ### On your data They build against your real systems, inside your security boundary. 03 ### Shipped Every engagement ends in working software in production. 04 ### Handed over Your team owns the code, the runbooks and the platform. [Talk to Hanzo FDE](https://hanzo.ai/contact-sales) Want to learn more about our current leadership, research, and models? [Return to About Hanzo](https://hanzo.ai/about)