What Quantum Leaps does

Quantum Leaps is a privately held software company founded in 2005 by Miro Samek, Ph.D., and headquartered in Pittsboro, North Carolina, with approximately eight employees. The company develops and maintains the QP family of real-time event frameworks (QP/C and QP/C++) for embedded systems, which implement the Active Object (Actor) model and Hierarchical State Machines as a non-blocking alternative to traditional RTOS shared-state concurrency. The technology targets microcontroller-based applications (particularly ARM Cortex-M), embedded Linux, and POSIX environments, and is sold primarily through a dual-license model under GPLv3 open-source terms or a commercial license that removes GPL obligations and unlocks unlimited QSPY tracing via QP License Certificates.

The company's product portfolio centers on the open-source QP frameworks, supplemented by the QM freeware model-based design tool — built on Qt and offering graphical UML statechart modeling with automatic code generation — and the QTools collection of host-based utilities including QSPY software tracing, QUTest trace-based unit testing, QView monitoring and visualization, and QWin prototyping. The current bundled release is QP-bundle 8.1.4 (April 2026). Integration hooks extend the ecosystem to MATLAB/GNU-Octave (QSPY trace export) and Python (QUTest scripting), and the company ships reference implementations for ARM-based evaluation kits including Silicon Labs' Pearl Gecko.

The go-to-market is product-led growth anchored on free tools and open-source downloads distributed globally via the company's website, GitHub, and SourceForge, with a free SourceForge support forum, a YouTube channel (StateMachineCOM), and the free 'Modern Embedded Programming' video course serving as top-of-funnel demand generation. Revenue levers are commercial licensing, professional QP/QM training, and commercial support subscriptions, supplemented by partners and resellers for enterprise deals. The company is founder-owned with no disclosed external funding, no M&A activity, and operates as a small, bootstrapped specialist in the embedded developer-tools segment serving a worldwide audience of MCU and embedded-Linux developers.

Name

Quantum Leaps

Legal name

Quantum Leaps, LLC

Website

https://state-machine.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2005

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Quantum Leaps is a privately held, founder-owned developer-tools company that builds the open-source QP real-time event frameworks (QP/C and QP/C++), the QM model-based design tool, and the QTools collection for embedded systems engineers working on ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers and embedded Linux.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Commercial Software Licensing: Quantum Leaps licenses the QP frameworks under commercial terms for proprietary use, separate from the GPL open-source license. Customers requiring commercial licensing can purchase certificates to remove QSPY tracing data limitations and use the framework without GPL obligations.
2. Professional Training: QP/QM Training courses offered for developers learning event-driven programming and state machine design with the QP frameworks.
3. Support Services: Commercial support offerings for enterprise customers needing dedicated assistance with QP framework implementation.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels6 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Quantum Leaps develops and licenses the QP real-time event frameworks (QP/C and QP/C++), which provide an event-driven architecture based on asynchronous Active Objects and Hierarchical State Machines for embedded systems targeting ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers and embedded Linux/POSIX platforms. The company also provides the QM model-based design tool with automatic code generation, the QTools collection (including QSPY software tracing, QUTest unit testing harness, and QView monitoring), and offers professional training and commercial support around these tools.

Product overview

Quantum Leaps provides the QP real-time event frameworks (QP/C and QP/C++) as the core product, which are open-source, event-driven frameworks for embedded systems based on the Active Object (Actor) model and Hierarchical State Machines. The product portfolio includes QM, a free graphical model-based design tool for UML statecharts with automatic code generation, and the QTools collection containing host-based utilities such as QSPY for software tracing, QUTest for trace-based unit testing, QView for monitoring/visualization, and QWin for prototyping. The QP-bundle packages all products together for download. These products work together to enable model-based development of event-driven embedded software, with code generation from visual models and comprehensive tracing/testing capabilities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• QP/C QP/C is a real-time event framework (RTEF) for C developers that provides modern event-driven architecture based on asynchronous Active Objects (Actors) and Hierarchical State Machines, designed for ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers and embedded Linux/POSIX systems.
• QP/C++ QP/C++ is a real-time event framework (RTEF) for C++ developers that provides modern event-driven architecture based on asynchronous Active Objects (Actors) and Hierarchical State Machines, designed for ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers and embedded Linux/POSIX systems.
• QM (QP Modeler) QM is a freeware model-based design (MBD) and automatic code generation tool for designing software based on UML statecharts and the QP frameworks, cross-platform on Windows, Linux, and macOS via Qt.
• QTools Collection QTools is an open-source collection of host-based tools for working with QP frameworks, including QSPY software tracing, QUTest unit testing harness, QView monitoring and visualization, QWin prototyping, QCalc programmer's calculator, and QCLEAN source code cleanup.
• QP/Spy (QS) Software Tracing QP/Spy is a software tracing system consisting of a target-resident QS component and the QSPY host application for real-time monitoring, debugging, and ASCII sequence diagram generation of embedded applications.
• QUTest Unit Testing Harness

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• ARMcoreTechnology or IntegrationQP frameworks are specifically optimized for ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers. The QP-bundle supports ARM Cortex-M targets natively with examples for various ARM-based evaluation kits.
• Silicon LabscoreTechnology or IntegrationQP frameworks include examples for Silicon Labs' EFM32-SLSTK3401A (Pearl Gecko) ARM Cortex-M4F evaluation kit, providing reference implementations for Silicon Labs MCU customers.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Emerging players

• Apache Mynewt: Apache Foundation open-source RTOS for constrained IoT devices. Targets an overlapping developer segment with QP for connected embedded applications.
• Contiki-NG: Open-source operating system for IoT constrained devices, focused on networked sensor applications. Adjacent alternative to QP for IoT-class Cortex-M development.

Broad incumbents

• Azure RTOS (ThreadX): Microsoft's embedded real-time operating system suite acquired from Express Logic. Targets the same MCU developer audience as QP, with deeper commercial backing and broader middleware stack.
• Green Hills INTEGRITY RTOS: Commercial safety- and security-certified RTOS targeting automotive, aerospace, medical, and industrial embedded markets. Competes with QP in the high-reliability embedded segment.
• Wind River VxWorks: Long-established commercial RTOS for safety- and security-critical embedded systems across aerospace, defense, automotive, and industrial. A higher-end incumbent alternative to QP for mission-critical projects.

Direct peers

• SEGGER embOS: Commercial RTOS from SEGGER aimed at embedded developers on ARM and other MCUs. A direct paid-license competitor to QP in commercial embedded projects requiring proprietary distribution.
• FreeRTOS: Widely deployed open-source real-time operating system for microcontrollers, now stewarded by Amazon Web Services. Competes with QP for the same embedded developer mindshare on Cortex-M and similar MCUs.
• Zephyr Project: Linux Foundation-hosted open-source RTOS targeting resource-constrained devices including ARM Cortex-M. Overlaps directly with QP as a free, vendor-neutral embedded framework option.
• WITTENSTEIN SafeRTOS: Pre-certified safety RTOS targeting IEC 61508 SIL 3 and IEC 62304 applications. Competes with QP for safety-critical embedded projects where certification is required.
• RT-Thread: Open-source embedded real-time operating system popular in China and increasingly globally. Provides a component-based RTOS with similar positioning to QP for Cortex-M and IoT developers.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/QuantumLeaps
• YouTubeyoutube.com/c/StateMachineCOM
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/quantum-leaps

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Quantum Leaps