# About Hanzo

URL: https://docs.hanzo.ai/docs/about/company

> The AI operating system for business. Building business software since 2014. Techstars '17.

Hanzo is an agentic operating system for business, at work since 2014. What
shipping for hundreds of venture-funded startups taught us is what Hanzo's AI
is built on.

## What we have built

- **2014.** Hanzo was founded as Crowdstart, a crowdfunding and commerce
  platform; its first commit landed on 2014-09-29, and it has been Go-native
  since October 2014. Our first customer that year
  was SKULLY, "the fastest fully-funded campaign on Indiegogo, raising $1
  million in about 45 hours"
  ([TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2014/08/14/the-skully-smart-helmet-is-the-fastest-funded-indiegogo-campaign-to-hit-1m/)).
  AI and machine learning have been in our commercial work since that year.
- **2016.** Crowdstart became Hanzo, adding blockchain and AI-native everything.
- **2017.** We built the first blockchain-native commerce platform. The Unikrn
  ICO raised over 120,000 ETH
  ([Crunchbase News](https://news.crunchbase.com/startups/found-ico-makes-sense/);
  [our part](https://hanzo.ai/customers#unikrn)). Hanzo joined Techstars '17
  ([Hanzo Blog, 2017-06-08](https://hanzo.blog/2017-06-08-techstars-17/);
  [Startland News, 2017-10-10](https://startlandnews.com/2017/10/techstars-spotlight-hanzos-e-commerce-tools-designed-to-make-you-money/)).
- **2019.** GPT models in commercial use.
- **2020.** Damon Motorcycles launched at CES on our AI-generated ads: $8.4M of
  motorcycles sold in 30 days, at a 541:1 return on ad spend
  ([case study](https://hanzo.ai/customers/damon-motorcycles)).
- **The portfolio.** Hundreds of venture-funded startups, with clients funded by
  Y Combinator, 500 Startups, Techstars and other tier-1 venture firms. Billions
  in client revenue. Two companies taken past 100 million users. Two that went
  public on Nasdaq in 2024: Damon Motorcycles
  ([Norton Rose Fulbright](https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/news/95a8e26f/norton-rose-fulbright-advises-grafiti-holding-inc-in-its-business-combination-with-damon-motors-inc))
  and Triller ([Nasdaq](https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/agba-completes-merger-triller-2024-10-15)).

The full timeline, with its case studies and press, is at
[hanzo.ai/about](https://hanzo.ai/about).

## People

- Antje Worring, CEO ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/antje-worring/))
- Zach Kelling, CTO ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/zeekay/),
  [GitHub](https://github.com/zeekay))

## Talk to us

- Everything else: [hanzo.ai/contact](https://hanzo.ai/contact), or
  <hello@hanzo.ai>. Sales: <enterprise@hanzo.ai>. Security: <security@hanzo.ai>.
- Investors: <ir@hanzo.ai>.
- Building with an agent: [Agents: start here](https://docs.hanzo.ai/docs/agents).

* [Book a call with Hanzo](https://cal.com/hanzo): Talk to the team about what you are building.