This Spanish AI Startup Just Raised $570 Million to Kill the Cost Barrier

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Multiverse Computing just raised $570 million at a $1.7 billion valuation to make AI cheaper and faster. Its compression tech reduces model size by up to 95% with almost no accuracy loss.

A Spanish AI scale-up just pulled off one of the largest funding rounds in European tech history, and it's not about building bigger models — it's about making them smaller. Multiverse Computing, based in San Sebastian, announced a $570 million Series C at a $1.7 billion pre-money valuation. That's five times what the company was worth after its Series B. The round brings total funding to $800 million. ### Who's Betting on This? The round was co-led by Forgepoint Capital International, BNPP SIVF, and Bullhound Capital. Other investors include Santander Alternative Investments, Tikehau Capital, HP Inc., Orange Ventures, Scania Invest, NAventures (National Bank of Canada's corporate venture arm), Qatar Development Bank, Zouk Capital, SETT, EIC Fund, the Basque Government's Hazten Scale-Up Fund, and Kutxa Fundazioa. That's a lot of big names. And the deal might still be open for a few more strategic investors. ### The Big Idea: AI That Doesn't Break the Bank Enrique Lizaso, co-founder and CEO, put it bluntly: "The AI industry has accepted a false constraint for years — that powerful models require expensive infrastructure. That constraint is gone." He's not wrong. Most companies today face a brutal trade-off. You either pay a fortune to run models on hyperscaler infrastructure, or you accept lower performance. Multiverse says you can have both — full performance without the massive cloud bill. ### How It Works Founded in 2019, Multiverse Computing helps organizations run secure, production-ready AI while slashing compute costs. The secret sauce is a technology called CompactifAI. - **Tensor networks** — a math framework from quantum physics — are used to compress AI models. - **Compression rates** hit 80-95% with almost no loss in accuracy. - **Result**: AI that runs faster, uses less energy, and can deploy anywhere — on a smartphone, inside a sovereign data center, or on a factory floor with no cloud connection. The company's platform spans the full deployment spectrum. Compressed models are optimized for cloud, on-premises, and on-device environments. A CompactifAI Router decides in real time whether a workload should run locally or go to the cloud. ### Why This Matters for Enterprises Most companies are stuck routing every workload through a hyperscaler and replacing existing infrastructure. Multiverse flips that. Instead of ripping and replacing, it adds an efficiency layer above existing systems. That means you can match each workload with the right model and backend — and save hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. ### The Bigger Picture Damien Henault, Managing Director and Partner at Forgepoint Capital International, summed it up: "The AI industry has built an extraordinary capability on top of an infrastructure model that wasn't designed to sustain it. The winners in the next phase of this multi-trillion-dollar market will be the ones that make every data center, every GPU, and every enterprise deployment dramatically more efficient." He called Multiverse "the only company we've seen that has both the technical foundation and the commercial traction to be that critical platform." ### What's Next? With $800 million in the bank, Multiverse is positioned to scale its proof across every industry that needs it. For European startups and enterprises watching from the US, this is a signal: efficient AI isn't a niche anymore. It's the next battleground.

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