QIZ Security Raises $17M to Help Enterprises Prepare for the Post-Quantum Security Shift

QIZ Security has raised $17 million in seed funding as enterprises begin confronting a cybersecurity problem that has been easy to postpone but increasingly difficult to ignore: much of today’s cryptography was not built for the quantum era.

The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Merlin Ventures, with participation from Evolution Equity Partners, Qbeat Ventures, Singtel Innov8, and Qino Cyber Capital. QIZ said the new capital will support product development, market expansion, and growth around its cryptographic posture and post-quantum cryptography management platform.

The raise lands at a moment when post-quantum cryptography is moving from research discussion to practical migration planning. For banks, exchanges, custodians, payment networks, blockchain infrastructure providers, and Web3 platforms, the implications are especially significant. Digital finance depends on cryptographic trust at nearly every layer, from wallet security and transaction signing to institutional custody, private key management, identity systems, APIs, and secure communications.

The Hidden Problem Inside Enterprise Security

Cryptography sits inside nearly every part of a modern organization: applications, databases, APIs, cloud workloads, identity systems, third-party integrations, and traffic moving between services. Yet many enterprises still do not have a reliable map of where encryption is used, what algorithms are in place, which assets depend on them, or who owns the remediation work.

That visibility gap is the problem QIZ is trying to solve. The company’s platform is built around continuous cryptographic discovery, risk prioritization, remediation planning, and governance. Rather than treating post-quantum readiness as a one-off assessment, QIZ frames it as an ongoing operating layer for cryptography management across hybrid and complex environments.

This is particularly relevant for the digital asset sector. Cryptocurrency and Web3 systems are often built around public-key cryptography, digital signatures, secure custody infrastructure, and distributed trust models. While the industry often focuses on smart contract exploits, exchange breaches, or phishing attacks, the post-quantum transition introduces a deeper infrastructure question: can crypto-native and financial institutions identify which cryptographic systems may become vulnerable, and migrate them without disrupting users, liquidity, or core business operations?

Why Post-Quantum Readiness Is Becoming a Board-Level Issue

The concern behind post-quantum security is not that quantum computers are breaking enterprise encryption at scale today. The concern is that organizations may need years to inventory, govern, and migrate the cryptographic systems they already depend on.

That timeline matters because of “harvest now, decrypt later” risk, where attackers collect encrypted data today in the hope that future quantum capabilities will make it readable. For sectors holding long-lived sensitive information, including finance, healthcare, telecom, government, and critical infrastructure, the migration clock is already relevant.

In cryptocurrency and Web3, the risk profile can be even more visible. Blockchains are transparent by design, and historical transaction data is permanently available. While different protocols face different levels of quantum exposure depending on how addresses, signatures, and keys are used, the broader point remains: crypto ecosystems will need credible quantum-readiness roadmaps if they want to maintain institutional trust over the long term.

QIZ’s own messaging focuses heavily on this operational reality: organizations cannot migrate cryptography they cannot see. The company is positioning its platform around crypto-agility, meaning the ability to understand cryptographic exposure, update algorithms, manage policy alignment, and respond as standards and regulatory expectations evolve.

What QIZ Is Building

QIZ is not simply offering a post-quantum algorithm implementation. Its platform is aimed at the management layer around cryptography.

That includes discovering cryptographic assets, understanding where encryption is used for data in motion and data at rest, identifying weak cipher suites or outdated TLS configurations, mapping dependencies between applications and infrastructure, and giving security teams a prioritized remediation path. The platform is also designed for multiple internal stakeholders, including CISOs, compliance teams, and application owners, which reflects how broad cryptographic modernization becomes once it moves beyond the security team.

For financial institutions and digital asset companies, this kind of visibility could become increasingly important. A crypto exchange, for example, may need to assess not only customer-facing wallet systems, but also internal signing infrastructure, custodial key management, API authentication, settlement systems, cloud workloads, vendor integrations, and compliance archives. A Web3 infrastructure provider may face similar questions across validators, bridges, developer tools, identity layers, and enterprise client environments.

QIZ has also been expanding its ecosystem through partnerships with major technology and advisory organizations, including Cisco, AWS, Google, CrowdStrike, Deloitte, EY, and IBM. The goal is to help customers accelerate cryptographic discovery, risk assessment, governance, and post-quantum migration planning across complex enterprise environments.

A Founder Team With Post-Quantum Experience

QIZ was founded by Ben Volkow, Lenny Ridel, and Dr. Itan Barmes. Volkow serves as CEO, Ridel as CTO, and Barmes as Chief Strategy Officer. The company says its team brings more than six years of hands-on post-quantum cryptography field experience and has worked with more than 100 organizations on quantum-safe readiness.

Barmes’ background is especially relevant to the company’s positioning. Before QIZ, he led Deloitte’s Global Quantum Cyber Readiness Team, where he worked with large organizations on post-quantum readiness and strategy, giving the startup a consulting-to-platform bridge that may resonate with enterprises still trying to turn quantum risk assessments into practical migration programs.

A Timely Raise for a Market Still Taking Shape

QIZ’s $17 million seed round comes as cryptographic modernization is becoming a more concrete line item for regulated organizations. Frameworks and requirements such as NIST PQC guidance, CNSA 2.0, DORA, NIS2, and PCI DSS are increasing pressure on companies to understand and govern their cryptographic estate rather than relying on fragmented asset lists or periodic reviews.

The post-quantum transition will not happen overnight, and the exact timing of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer remains uncertain. But the enterprise work required to prepare is already becoming clearer: find the cryptography, understand the risk, prioritize the migration, and build systems that can adapt as standards evolve.

For cryptocurrency and Web3, that same lesson applies. The long-term credibility of digital assets depends not only on market structure, regulation, and adoption, but also on whether the cryptographic foundations beneath the ecosystem can evolve as computing power changes.

That is the opening QIZ Security is pursuing with its new funding. For a young company in a category still being defined, the challenge now is not just convincing enterprises that post-quantum risk matters. It is proving that cryptographic readiness can be made operational, continuous, and manageable before the pressure becomes unavoidable.