Quantstamp is a blockchain security company founded in 2017 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was part of Y Combinator's Winter 2018 batch, which provided early validation and helped the firm establish credibility in a nascent smart contract audit market. The company built its reputation auditing high-stakes decentralized protocols and later expanded into strategic investments, backing select early-stage projects where security infrastructure is a core concern.
The firm's primary business is smart contract auditing – reviewing code for vulnerabilities before protocols go live. By 2023, Quantstamp reported securing over $200 billion in digital assets across hundreds of audits. Its investment activity is smaller in scale, with a reported portfolio of around six companies and three lead investments. Quantstamp does not publicly disclose assets under management for its investment arm, and the firm has not registered as a venture fund with the SEC. Public information about total committed capital is limited.
Notable Investments and Audit Clients
Quantstamp operates at the intersection of security services and strategic investment. Its audit roster includes some of the most prominent names in the ecosystem, and several audit relationships have evolved into deeper partnerships or equity stakes. Publicly documented engagements include:
- Ethereum 2.0 (Beacon Chain) – Quantstamp was among the firms selected to audit the Ethereum consensus layer upgrade, one of the highest-profile security assignments in blockchain history.
- OpenSea – audited smart contracts for the leading NFT marketplace during its peak growth period.
- MakerDAO – security review of MCD (Multi-Collateral Dai) contracts, critical infrastructure for DeFi.
- Compound – audited lending protocol contracts; Compound became a DeFi blue chip.
- Flow (Dapper Labs) – security work on the Flow blockchain, which powers NBA Top Shot.
- Cardano / IOHK – audit of Cardano smart contract components.
Specific equity investment targets beyond these relationships are not comprehensively disclosed in public filings. The six-project portfolio figure comes from aggregated deal databases rather than Quantstamp's own disclosures.
Team
Quantstamp was co-founded by Richard Ma (CEO) and Steven Stewart (CTO). Richard Ma previously worked in high-frequency trading and brings a quantitative finance background to crypto security. Steven Stewart has a software engineering background with experience in distributed systems. The company has grown to a team of several dozen security engineers, researchers, and auditors distributed across North America, Europe, and Asia. Public information about additional managing partners or investment team members beyond the two co-founders is limited.
Recent Activity
Between 2024 and early 2026, Quantstamp continued expanding its audit practice into newer verticals – particularly Layer 2 rollup infrastructure, cross-chain bridges, and restaking protocols. Bridge security became a major focus following a series of high-profile exploits across the industry (Ronin, Wormhole, Nomad), and Quantstamp positioned itself as a go-to auditor for bridge contracts. The firm also published open research on formal verification methods for smart contracts, contributing to academic and practitioner literature. No major fund raises or acquisitions by Quantstamp were publicly announced during this period.
Quantstamp occupies a well-defined niche: a security-first firm that also holds strategic positions in protocols it helps secure. Its geographic focus remains primarily the United States, with a global client base. For a blockchain infrastructure firm founded at the height of the 2017 ICO boom, it has demonstrated unusual staying power – surviving multiple market cycles without pivoting away from its core audit business. The investment portfolio is modest by venture standards, reflecting a selective, security-driven deal thesis rather than broad index-style deployment. Further detail on individual investment terms and valuations is not publicly available.
More information: quantstamp.com | Crunchbase profile | Y Combinator listing
