Spanish startup Multiverse Computing announced on Thursday that it has secured a substantial Series B funding round of €189 million, approximately $215 million. This investment is primarily driven by their innovative technology known as “CompactifAI.”
CompactifAI is a compression technology inspired by quantum computing, designed to significantly reduce the size of large language models (LLMs) by up to 95%, all while maintaining their performance levels. Multiverse specializes in offering compressed versions of popular open-source LLMs, targeting smaller models such as Llama 4 Scout, Llama 3.3 70B, and Llama 3.1 8B.
The company plans to launch a version of DeepSeek R1 soon while also working on additional open-source and reasoning models. However, proprietary models from companies like OpenAI are not included in their offerings. The startup’s “slim” models can be accessed through Amazon Web Services or licensed for on-premise use.
Multiverse proudly claims that these models operate 4 to 12 times faster than their uncompressed counterparts, resulting in a remarkable 50% to 80% reduction in inference costs. For instance, their Llama 4 Scout Slim is priced at 10 cents per million tokens on AWS compared to the 14 cents for the standard version. Some models are so compact and energy-efficient that they can run on devices such as PCs, smartphones, cars, drones, and even Raspberry Pis.
Multiverse was co-founded by CTO Román Orús, a professor at the Donostia International Physics Center recognized for his work on tensor networks, which function as computational tools simulating quantum computers without needing them. The other co-founder, CEO Enrique Lizaso Olmos, has an extensive background in mathematics and banking, previously serving as the deputy CEO of Unnim Bank. The Series B funding round was led by Bullhound Capital, alongside other notable investors such as HP Tech Ventures, Santander Climate VC, and Toshiba.
With this latest funding, Multiverse has raised around $250 million in total and currently holds 160 patents and 100 global customers, including Iberdrola and the Bank of Canada.