Enrique Lizaso Olmos

Co-Founder & CEO Multiverse Computing

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Enrique Lizaso Olmos is co-founder and chief executive of Multiverse Computing, a San Sebastián company that has made an unusual and commercially consequential bet: that the mathematics developed to simulate quantum systems, and tensor networks in particular, can be turned on large AI models to compress them. Its CompactifAI platform shrinks models so they can run at lower cost and, increasingly, on local hardware — a proposition with obvious appeal in Europe, where sovereignty and inference cost are live concerns. The company has grown from a quantum software startup for finance into one that ships its own open-weight models, and raised a 215 million dollar Series B in June 2025. Lizaso’s own background is the most heterogeneous in this batch: a mathematician and computer engineer who is also a qualified physician, who taught statistics at university, and who then spent more than twenty years in banking, reaching deputy chief executive of Unnim before turning to quantum technology.

Career Highlights

• Co-founded Multiverse Computing in 2019 with Román Orús, Alfonso Rubio-Manzanares and Sam Mugel, and leads it as chief executive from San Sebastián.
• Grew the company to offices across Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Paris, Munich, London, Milan, Toronto and San Francisco.
• Raised a 215 million dollar Series B in June 2025 led by Bullhound Capital, with HP Tech Ventures and SETT among the participants.
• Previously secured a 12.5 million euro European Innovation Council Accelerator award in 2021 and a 25 million euro round in 2024 at a 100 million euro valuation.
• Built the business around CompactifAI, the tensor-network model compression platform, alongside its Singularity quantum software.
• Shipped the HyperNova 60B open-source AI model in February 2026 and a CompactifAI app with an embedded model able to run locally and offline in March 2026.
• Promotes Quasar 438B as Europe’s most intelligent AI model on Artificial Analysis’ assessment.
• Named by CB Insights among the 100 most promising AI companies in the world in 2025, and won a TechTour 50 Growth Europe award in the digital category.
• Served as Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Unnim after more than twenty years in finance and banking.
• Taught as a university professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, covering statistics in engineering and mechatronics and in finance and marketing.

Professional Journey

Lizaso accumulated an unusually wide formal education before any of this: a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Barcelona, a computer engineering qualification from UNED, a medical degree from the University of Navarra, a PhD from the University of Barcelona, and an MBA from IESE. He also taught at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, lecturing on statistics within engineering and mechatronics and within finance and marketing.

His working career, though, was made in banking. He spent more than twenty years in finance, rising to Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Unnim, the Catalan savings bank. He was also involved in earlier ventures — BlockTac in blockchain and OmnixHealth in international health insurance — which gave him startup exposure alongside the institutional career.

Multiverse Computing was founded in 2019 by Lizaso together with the physicist Román Orús, Alfonso Rubio-Manzanares and Sam Mugel, the idea for a quantum computing company aimed at finance having been worked out between them in a messaging thread. The combination was deliberate: deep tensor-network physics on one side, and on the other a chief executive who had actually run risk and operations inside a bank and therefore knew which financial problems were worth attacking.

The company’s centre of gravity has since shifted from quantum computing proper to quantum-inspired methods applied to artificial intelligence. Tensor networks, the mathematical machinery used to make quantum many-body systems tractable, turn out to be effective at compressing the parameter matrices of large language models. That became CompactifAI, and it moved Multiverse from selling into a small quantum market to selling into the very large one for AI inference cost and on-device deployment. Investors followed: after an EIC Accelerator award in 2021 and a round in 2024, the company raised 215 million dollars in June 2025 in a Series B led by Bullhound Capital, with HP Tech Ventures among the backers — a strategic signal given the on-device direction.

Through 2026 the company has been releasing models of its own, including HyperNova 60B in February and an app running an embedded model locally and offline in March, and positioning Quasar 438B as Europe’s most capable AI model on independent assessment. Alongside the executive role Lizaso holds office in the European Quantum Industry Consortium as treasurer, leadership team member and governing board member, and co-leads its workgroup on small and medium enterprises and funding.

Education

University of Barcelona

Bachelor’s degree, Mathematics

Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)

Computer Engineer

University of Navarra

M.D.

University of Barcelona

PhD

IESE Business School

M.B.A.