Hexens.
12.5x Revenue Growth in 2 Years
How Cracked Labs scaled Hexens from $400K to $5M in annual revenue, converted 20% to recurring ARR, and closed multimillion-dollar ecosystem-wide security contracts with Coinbase, Base, EigenLayer, and Lido.
12.5x
Revenue growth
$5M
Annual revenue
20%
Converted to ARR
7
Tier-1 ecosystem deals
The Challenge
Hexens is one of the most technically respected Web3 security firms in the world — formal verification, smart contract auditing, and offensive security research. But when Ellis joined as VP of Sales, the commercial side didn't match the technical reputation.
Revenue was $400K annually. There was no recurring revenue — every engagement was a one-off project-based audit. The sales process was reactive: clients came inbound through referrals, Hexens did the work, and the relationship ended. There was no systematic pipeline, no account expansion strategy, and no mechanism to convert one-time clients into long-term accounts.
The challenge was clear: build a revenue engine from scratch in a market where most security firms compete on price, not value.
The Approach
Repositioned from vendor to strategic partner. Instead of selling audits, we sold security programs — ongoing relationships where Hexens became the embedded security team for an entire ecosystem. This meant moving from $30K–$80K one-off audits to $500K–$2M ecosystem-wide contracts.
Built an outbound pipeline for the first time. Hexens had never done proactive BD. We built target lists of L1/L2 ecosystems and DeFi protocols with significant TVL, crafted personalized outreach that led with their specific security risks, and created a structured sales process with clear stages and timelines.
Created the ecosystem security model. The breakthrough innovation was packaging security as an ecosystem service — where an L1 or L2 would contract Hexens to provide subsidized audits to projects building on their chain. This aligned incentives: the ecosystem got safer, projects got affordable audits, and Hexens got volume plus a long-term relationship with the ecosystem itself.
Converted project work to ARR. For every one-off engagement, we designed an expansion path — continuous monitoring, retainer-based advisory, or upgrade to an ecosystem deal. This converted 20% of project-based revenue to recurring ARR where none previously existed.
Closed enterprise-grade deals. Coinbase, Base, EigenLayer, Lido, Kraken, Polygon, Avalanche — each required navigating complex procurement processes, multi-stakeholder sign-offs, and custom scoping. These weren't SMB sales cycles — they were 3–6 month enterprise deals that required technical depth and executive credibility.
The Results
The numbers speak for themselves: $400K to $5M in two years — 12.5x growth. But the qualitative transformation was equally important.
Hexens went from a respected-but-small audit shop to the security partner of choice for tier-1 ecosystems. The ecosystem security model became a template that other security firms tried to replicate. The recurring ARR base (20% of revenue) gave the business predictability and compounding growth.
Key clients signed during this period: **Coinbase** (exchange-wide security), **Base** (ecosystem audit program), **EigenLayer** (restaking security), **Lido** (liquid staking), **Kraken** (exchange security), **Polygon** (ecosystem program), and **Avalanche** (subnet security).
The pipeline wasn't just closed deals — it was a system. When Ellis moved on to launch Cracked Labs full-time, the revenue engine continued to produce because the process, not just the person, was built to last.
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