companies

Homebrew Computer Company

AI research lab (also known as Menlo Research/Homebrew) behind Jan, an open-source AI assistant that runs models entirely on-device, offline.

Jan was started in August 2023 by founder Alan Dao and team, initially operating under the name Menlo Research, as an open-source alternative to ChatGPT that runs fully offline and locally. The legal entity is Homebrew Computer Company Pte. Ltd., incorporated in Singapore, while the team operates primarily out of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Jan supports local models such as Llama, Gemma, and Qwen in GGUF format pulled from Hugging Face, and exposes an OpenAI-compatible local API. In July 2024 the organization rebranded its broader research-lab identity as Homebrew, positioning itself as an AI research lab with Jan as its flagship product alongside projects like Cortex. As of 2026, Jan has surpassed 5 million downloads and 41,000+ GitHub stars, and is released under the Apache 2.0 license.

Founded

2023

Headquarters

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Sector

lab