What we fund
We invest where we have run the code ourselves. That is a narrow band, and saying so is more useful to a founder than a broad thesis nobody can act on.
AI infrastructure
Inference, agents, retrieval, evaluation — the plumbing under the models rather than another wrapper on top of them. We run this in production at hanzo.ai.
Decentralized systems
Chains, identity, post-quantum cryptography, settlement. Lux is our own work in this area, so we can read your protocol rather than take your word for it.
Developer tools
Things engineers choose on a Tuesday without asking permission. If adoption depends on a procurement cycle, we are the wrong fund.
Open weights and open source
We publish the Zen weights and most of our stack. We are comfortable with companies whose core is readable, and we know how those businesses actually make money.
The Hanzo Startup Program
The program is run by Hanzo AI and the application lives at hanzo.ai/startups. It is open whether or not we ever invest — the credits are not a term sheet and carry no equity.
An account costs nothing. Add funds when you are ready and pay for what you use — no subscription, no minimum, no call with anybody.
Connect GPUs and machines you already have. We meter the platform, not your iron, so a rack in a closet stays cheap to run.
For venture-backed teams. An application is required and tier-one backing is a condition of the credits tier specifically.
Hanzo is a Techstars company. We match perks to each portfolio brand — name your batch in the application and we will honour it.
Portfolio — built and operated
Companies, networks and model families we founded and still run. Legal entities are quoted from our own brand registry; every address below answers, and a gate on every publish re-checks that it still does.
Hanzo AI
Hanzo AI Inc.Enterprise AI infrastructure and frontier models. One API for inference, agents, storage and deploy — the platform this fund runs its own operations on.
hanzo.ai →Lux Network
Lux Industries Inc.High-performance, post-quantum blockchain infrastructure. A sovereign network for institutional-grade access to digital money and real world assets.
lux.network →Zoo
Zoo Labs FoundationAn open, decentralized AI and science research network. A 501(c)(3) foundation funding work that does not have a commercial home yet.
zoo.ngo →Pars Network
Parsis FoundationA sovereign, verifiable identity layer for the Pars community.
pars.network →Zen
zenlm.orgOur open-weight model family. The weights are published — you can run them on hardware you own, with nothing calling home.
zenlm.org →Lux Fund
lux.fundDigital asset management and a fund of funds, built for secure and sustainable returns.
lux.fund →Hanzo Agency
hanzo.agencyThe creative arm. Design, content and marketing for brands, run with the same AI tooling we ship.
hanzo.agency →Sensei Group
sensei.groupA collective of fractional CXOs and operators who help enterprises actually land the technology they buy.
sensei.group →Companies we have built for
Operating work — engineering, launches, go-to-market — for companies we do not own. These are clients, not investments, and each link goes to our own written account of the work so you can judge it rather than take a logo on trust.
Unikrn
Case studyBlockchain infrastructure and regulatory compliance across 15+ jurisdictions for the Unikoin Gold token launch.
Case study →Casper Labs
Case studyArchitecture and launch of an enterprise blockchain — through the Rust pivot, mainnet, and the founding of DEVxDAO.
Case study →Damon Motorcycles
Case studyA demand campaign for their electric motorcycles.
Case study →Bellabeat
Case studyCTO and CMO services, marketing automation and analytics for a women’s health wearable platform.
Case study →Personas Social
Case studyAI features built into the Keek social platform.
Case study →Building something?
Send what you have running to [email protected]. A repo and a paragraph beats a deck — we would rather read the code than the projection.
If you want platform credits rather than capital, that is a different door and it is open on its own: the program application is at hanzo.ai/startups and does not route through us.