Multiverse Computing raises £159 million to expand AI compression

Multiverse Computing has secured a USD $215 million (GBP £159 million / EUR €189 million) Series B investment to accelerate the expansion of CompactifAI, a technology designed to compress large language models by up to 95% without impacting their performance.

The funding round was led by Bullhound Capital and attracted international backing, including contributions from HP Tech Ventures, SETT, Forgepoint Capital International, CDP Venture Capital, Santander Climate VC, Quantonation, Toshiba and Capital Riesgo de Euskadi - Grupo SPRI. The company, which has focused efforts on product development and deployment throughout 2024, will use the investment to broaden the adoption of its technology and address the financial barriers associated with scaling artificial intelligence models.

Multiverse Computing's client base includes organisations such as Rolls Royce, Santander, BASF, Mercedes and Allianz, spanning several sectors in the UK and beyond. The company's approach permits high-performance AI to operate on a range of devices, from mobile phones and drones to compact units such as the Raspberry Pi. This flexibility aims to ease infrastructure demands and improve the environmental sustainability of AI deployment by reducing energy consumption and hardware dependency.

Compression breakthrough

Large language models (LLMs) are predominantly operated from specialised cloud infrastructure that contributes to increased data centre costs and energy requirements. Existing compression techniques such as quantisation and pruning have often resulted in performance losses. Multiverse Computing's CompactifAI technology, however, has demonstrated the capacity to produce models that maintain the accuracy of their open source counterparts, increase processing speeds between four and twelve times, and cut inference costs by 50% to 80%.

These compressed models can function either in the cloud, in private data centres or directly on endpoint devices. This adaptability addresses concerns regarding the scalability and accessibility of AI, particularly in regions where infrastructure costs have become a significant limitation on further AI adoption.

"The prevailing wisdom is that shrinking LLMs comes at a cost. Multiverse is changing that," said Enrique Lizaso Olmos, Founder and CEO of Multiverse Computing. "What started as a breakthrough in model compression quickly proved transformative—unlocking new efficiencies in AI deployment and earning rapid adoption for its ability to radically reduce the hardware requirements for running AI models. With a unique syndicate of expert and strategic global investors on board and Bullhound Capital as lead investor, we can now further advance our laser-focused delivery of compressed AI models that offer outstanding performance with minimal infrastructure."

CompactifAI was developed using Tensor Networks, a quantum-inspired field focussing on simplifying neural networks, pioneered by Román Orús, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Multiverse.

"For the first time in history, we are able to profile the inner workings of a neural network to eliminate billions of spurious correlations to truly optimize all sorts of AI models," said Orús. Compressed versions of top Llama, DeepSeek and Mistral models are available now, with additional models coming soon.

Per Roman, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Bullhound Capital, commented on the investment and the strategic partnership that has formed as a result.

"Multiverse's CompactifAI introduces material changes to AI processing that address the global need for greater efficiency in AI, and their ingenuity is accelerating European sovereignty. Román Orús has convinced us that he and his team of engineers are developing truly world-class solutions in this highly complex and compute intensive field. Enrique Lizaso is the perfect CEO for rapidly expanding the business in a global race for AI dominance. I am also pleased to see that so many high-profile investors such as HP and Forgepoint decided to join the round. We welcome their participation."

Edge computing focus

Tuan Tran, President of Technology and Innovation at HP, noted the investment aligns with broader objectives to increase the accessibility of advanced AI applications.

"At HP, we are dedicated to leading the future of work by providing solutions that drive business growth and enhance professional fulfillment. Our investment in Multiverse Computing supports this ambition. By making AI applications more accessible at the edge, Multiverse's innovative approach has the potential to bring AI benefits of enhanced performance, personalization, privacy and cost efficiency to life for companies of any size."

Damien Henault, Managing Director at Forgepoint Capital International, emphasised the significance of the technology's underlying capability.

"The Multiverse team has solved a deeply complex problem with sweeping implications. The company is well-positioned to be a foundational layer of the AI infrastructure stack. Multiverse represents a quantum leap for the global deployment and application of AI models, enabling smarter, cheaper and greener AI. This is only just the beginning of a massive market opportunity."

Multiverse Computing has acknowledged the support received from current investors as well as European institutional backers, which it states has been central to reaching this milestone.