In Axon’s 30th year of protecting life, we’re proud to share our recent recognition on Fortune’s Future 50™ list for 2023.

The Fortune Future 50™ ranking is a collaborative analysis between Fortune and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), assessing the long-term revenue growth prospects of over 1,700 of the world’s largest public companies. Axon's inclusion highlights our market potential and capabilities in delivering sustained growth. We’re thrilled to earn this distinction alongside other leading companies.

To learn more about our mission and continued commitment to advance public safety, see this sponsored feature, made in partnership with Fortune Brand Studio.

How a nonlethal weapons company plans to ‘obsolete the bullet’

Over 30 years, Axon has revolutionized law enforcement and public safety with technology and nonlethal solutions. And it’s not done yet.

After losing two friends to gun violence in the 90s, Rick Smith set out on a mission to protect human life and make bullets obsolete. That singular goal led to his founding TASER International in 1993. Over the past three decades, the publicly traded company—now Axon Enterprises, Inc.—has grown from two people in a garage to more than 3,000 employees across seven global offices and has pioneered innovations in three public safety sectors.

“We started with nonlethal weapons, then we added body cameras to cover how police and people use our weapons to make sure they’re not being abused and misused. That led us to create the largest cloud software business in public safety,” says Smith, Axon founder and CEO.

Today, Axon comprises a connected ecosystem of hardware and software used by more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies in more than 100 countries and provides the digital evidence management system of choice for agencies of all sizes—from small municipalities to some of the largest agencies in the world. This year, the company increased its partnerships with federal agencies, including the U.S. departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

“I’m very passionate about creating new nonlethal weapon capabilities for the military, which alone will be a huge growth sector,” says Smith.

The company, which has a market cap of $16.65 billion, just returned its seventh consecutive quarter of more than 30% year-over-year growth (to $414 million), and raised its full year revenue outlook to approximately $1.55 billion. Approximately 20% of Axon’s revenue goes into research and development.

In 2022, the company announced a moonshot goal to reduce gun-related deaths in the U.S. between police and the public by 50% by 2033. To reach that goal, Axon is focused on three areas: technology, training, and building greater trust through data and insights.

On the technology front, the company introduced the latest line of energy weapons and body-worn cameras with TASER 10 and Axon Body 4. Currently the market leader in drone software, Axon recently acquired a tactical drone and robot company and plans to innovate their use for private security, law enforcement, and the military. It’s also using virtual reality to improve police training and has established the Axon Public Safety Gun Fatality Database to track gun-related deaths between police and the public.

The company is also incorporating artificial intelligence tools into its digital evidence ecosystem, which Smith says can extract relevant data in less than one-half the time it takes a human, allowing law enforcement to spend more time policing and less time typing.

Axon plans to continue innovating in this space with new products in the pipeline consistently over the next several years. The company also plans to expand its capabilities to new markets that can benefit from these offerings, including military services and commercial retail enterprise.

“We want to drive violence and crime out of society while doing so in a way that protects us all and our privacy,” says Smith.