Technical Advisory · Capital Markets

Capital markets systems,
built and evaluated under real conditions

Cambie advises institutions, trading firms, and founders on the design, architecture, and operational integrity of capital markets systems.

In select cases, we invest alongside the systems we understand best, forming conviction through direct technical work rather than external diligence.

Our Services Schedule a conversation
Engagements
Fixed-fee, project, or retainer
Capital
Selective co-investment
Diagnostic
One-week turnaround
Availability
Select new mandates each quarter

Three engagement
models

Each engagement is structured around a concrete outcome: identifying risk, validating system design, or bringing production infrastructure to a level where it can withstand real capital and real market conditions.

I
Technical Architecture & Risk Review
A direct assessment of your system design, financial logic, and risk exposure, resulting in a written report that identifies failure points, hidden assumptions, and what must be fixed before capital is put at risk.
  • System architecture and component analysis
  • Financial logic and pricing model review
  • Derivatives, risk engine, and liquidation mechanics
  • Operational security and attack surface assessment
  • Prioritised remediation roadmap
From $10,000
Fixed fee
II
Trading & Quantitative Infrastructure
Design and evaluation of the data pipelines, execution systems, and risk infrastructure required to deploy and manage capital in live markets, where latency, correctness, and failure modes directly impact P&L.
  • Market data ingestion and normalisation
  • Execution engine architecture and latency review
  • Backtesting and research pipeline buildout
  • Risk monitoring, dashboards, and alerting
  • Strategy deployment infrastructure
$15,000–$50,000
Project or $8K–$20K/mo
III
Technical Advisory Retainer
Projects past the initial build stage often need a senior technical mind without another full-time hire. We handle the architecture decisions, vendor selection, hiring, and security oversight on a monthly basis.
  • Weekly strategy and architecture sessions
  • Vendor, tooling, and auditor selection
  • Engineering team hiring and review
  • Roadmap and security oversight
  • Direct access between sessions
$5,000–$15,000
Per month

The right fit is selective by design

Our work lands hardest when something real is on the line — a launch approaching, a system starting to crack under load. Not a speculative conversation about something that might happen eventually.

We work with clients in North America, the EU, Southeast Asia, and the Gulf. Time zone rarely matters when the problem is specific enough.

"We don't audit a system from the outside and hand back a report. We think alongside your team."
01

Early-stage fintech companies

Seed to Series A teams building derivatives, lending, exchange, or structured product platforms approaching their first real audit or fundraise.

02

Trading firms with capital but underdeveloped infrastructure

Firms with strong strategies and deployment capital whose data, execution, or risk infrastructure has not kept pace with their growth.

03

Exchanges and liquidity providers

Teams building pricing engines, market-making systems, or liquidation infrastructure that requires production-grade reliability and financial correctness.

04

Founders who need more than a development agency

Venture-backed founders navigating complex architecture decisions, audit preparation, or scaling inflection points who need a technically senior co-pilot.

05

Institutions conducting technical diligence

Financial institutions, fund managers, and specialist firms seeking external technical expertise on the systems they are evaluating, funding, or acquiring.

How we structure
our engagements

We begin every relationship with a bounded, fixed-fee diagnostic to establish a clear, technical view of the system before capital, time, or reputation is committed.

01

Diagnostic Review

We assess your architecture, financial logic, and risk profile and return a written, prioritised action report. Concrete and specific, not generic observations.

Fixed fee · One week
02

Embedded Engagement

We work alongside your team to address the highest-priority issues: system redesign, risk engine correctness, compliance readiness, or infrastructure buildout.

Project-based · Two to eight weeks
03

Ongoing Partnership

Continued technical judgment, architecture guidance, and hiring support on a monthly basis. For select clients, we remain engaged well beyond the initial mandate.

Monthly retainer · Selective

We invest where we have earned conviction

In a small number of cases, our advisory work leads to direct capital allocation. Because we work at the level of architecture, financial logic, and production systems, our conviction is formed through first-hand technical understanding, as opposed to external diligence.

We invest from our own balance sheet, alongside founders and counterparties, on a fully disclosed and independent basis.

Technical Advisory Proprietary Capital Aligned Interests Full Disclosure

Most advisors know the code.
Or the market. Rarely both.

Financial systems fail at the boundaries: between code, market behavior, and operational reality. Cambie operates at the intersection: protocol-level correctness, adversarial security thinking, and real trading infrastructure experience.

The expensive problems live in programmable financial contracts, risk engines, and execution infrastructure. Generalist agencies don't know the domain well enough. Traditional auditors know the domain but not the systems. There's usually no one who knows both. We've built and broken things on either side.

We keep the client list short. Every engagement teaches us something the next one benefits from: specifically, how these systems fail under real pressure.

Over time, this work compounds into industry insight and selective capital deployment, forming the basis of a broader investment strategy grounded in technical understanding rather than narrative.

Start a conversation
I

Protocol Engineering

Deep experience with programmable financial contracts, economic design, and audit-readiness across complex system architectures.

II

Trading Infrastructure

Systems thinking from latency-sensitive execution environments: market data pipelines, execution engines, and the operational demands of live markets.

III

Financial Logic

Derivatives pricing, funding mechanics, liquidation design, and risk parameters. The mathematics and edge cases that break systems under real market stress.

IV

Capital Markets Perspective

Every system is evaluated through the dual frame of technical correctness and adversarial market reality. Both matter equally, and most advisors only see one.

Begin with a conversation

We take on a small number of new engagements each quarter. Tell us what you're building and where you're stuck. We'll respond within one business day.

Website cambie.xyz