# Helen Hastings

> Helen Hastings is the San Francisco-based founder and CEO of Quanta, an accounting service and financial software company. A Stanford-trained computer scientist and former Affirm engineer, she built financial ledgers before founding Quanta in 2023. Her approach combines extensive customer research, accounting expertise, and software built around a proprietary general ledger.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at Quanta
- **Organizations:** Quanta, Affirm, Stanford University, she++
- **Education:** Computer Science, Stanford University
- **Known for:** Founded Quanta after a career building financial systems at Affirm., Led Quanta through a $4.7 million seed round and a $15 million Series A., Launched Prism, Quanta’s reporting layer, in December 2025.

## Career timeline

- **2014** — Featured in Stanford’s she++ video-library coverage as director of finance and a developer at the Virtual Human Interaction Laboratory.
- **2016** — Featured in a Stanford Engineering spotlight discussing technology as an unsolved problem.
- **Before 2023** — Spent nearly six years at Affirm, building financial ledgers and working on its in-house accounting system.
- **2022** — Began full-time user research with accounting and finance professionals.
- **2023** — Founded Quanta; Accel records its initial seed investment in 2023.
- **2025-02** — Publicly launched Quanta and announced its $4.7 million seed round.
- **2025-12** — Announced a $15 million Series A led by Accel and launched Prism.
- **2026-05** — Published The 500-Year-Old Bug in Finance, explaining her argument for retaining transaction-level financial context.

## Achievements

- Founded Quanta after a career building financial systems at Affirm.
- Led Quanta through a $4.7 million seed round and a $15 million Series A.
- Launched Prism, Quanta’s reporting layer, in December 2025.

## Latest updates

- **2026-05** — Published The 500-Year-Old Bug in Finance on May 22, arguing that financial systems should preserve transaction context.
- **2026-05** — Featured in Chargebee’s discussion of AI-native product-market fit, pricing, and services, published May 16.
- **2026-04** — Appeared on IMA’s Count Me In on April 6 to discuss continuous close and explainable finance.
- **2026-03** — Appeared on The Product Market Fit Show on March 19 to discuss research, fundraising, and operating an AI-enabled accounting service.

## Links

- Website: https://helenhastin.gs
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenbhastings
- GitHub: https://github.com/he1en

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/helen-hastings
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-22