Chaotic Moon Studios

History

Chaotic Moon was founded in March 2010 by Ben Lamm, Whurley (William Hurley) and Mike Erwin. In 2012, they launched Chaotic Moon Labs, a research and development division that involved into BASE, their in-house innovation lab.

Culture and Strategy

The company’s website describes Chaotic Moon as not just a company, but a cult with a focus on being the best, a mantra that is exhibited in mural form in the lobby office. CEO Ben Lamm has spoken with the Huffington Post about the importance of maintaining the creative edge and wrote an op-ed in the Austin Business journal in which he described creativity as a culture, the need to take risks, and how to build, maintain and instill a brand within one’s employees.

Chaotic Moon’s software emphasizes overall user experience, while in terms of hardware, they claim to be agnostic, and develop cutting-edge products for all products The company has claimed to treat its client engagements like partnerships and partners solely with brands who are a good fit and align with Chaotic Moon’s forward-thinking vision and innovation focus.

Software

While Chaotic Moon is reported to have many projects for high-profile clients under NDA, some of the brands they’re known to have worked with include News Corp Microsoft, Pizza Hut, Fox, CBS Sports, Sanrio, Betty Crocker, Starbucks, Best Buy, Groupon and Discovery Channel

Chaotic Moon has an in-house R&D team, known for their creative innovations. The team created the SmartestCart, a “smart” shopping cart capable of following the user around the store, making suggestions for the grocery list and meal ideas, keeping track of allergies and allowing the user to bypass the checkout line. The company also created Tech Tats, an exploration into the use of skin-mounted components and conductive paint to create circuitry that lives on the human body in the form of a tattoo that has the capability to collect, store, send and receive data. Chaotic Moon has created two fitness tracking apparatuses: Fitcoin, which paid the user for their workout in Bitcoin, and a fitness tracker for wheelchair users that also gathers data that can be used for terrain mapping. Other notable projects include Sentiri, a proximity-sensing headband; Blue Eyes, a camera-equipped drone mounted to the roof of a police car that can take off and record an encounter from above; and a motorized skateboard, referred to as the Board of Awesomeness, that was showcased at South by Southwest in 2012. It reaches a top speed of 32 mph.

Games & Experiences

Among notable games that Chaotic Moon has created are two virtual-reality experiences. Shark Punch combined the Leap Motion device with the Oculus Rift for a game in which users were immersed in a virtual environment where they fought off sharks. Death From Above allowed for a two-player VR experience by combining a PC, manned by player one, running a virtual reality driving game, with an iPad, manned by player two, that communicates directly with the game in real time.

Acquisitions

Chaotic Moon Studios has made a series of acquisitions since its inception in 2010. Two such public acquisitions were Dollar App and Symbiot Security. In May 2012, Chaotic Moon acquired Dollar App, a San Francisco-based mobile app developer founded in 2008 by Dom Sagolla. That same year, Dollar App developed Barack Obama’s official iPhone presidential campaign app. Dollar App became Chaotic Moon’s Bay Area satellite studio, with Sagolla staying on as chief product officer. Later in 2012, Chaotic Moon Studios purchased information and risk metrics security management company Symbiot Security. Symbiot, which was also co-founded by Hurley, previously specialized in providing information security for the US government and military, as well as corporate clients.

In July 2015, Chaotic Moon was acquired by consulting and technology service company Accenture.