Spanish Deeptech startup Maisa has raised $5M in Pre-Seed funding, led by NFX with Village Global participating. Maisa claims its tech “executes reasoning” computationally, step by step, using attributable sources rather than next-word or idea prediction.

Maisa hopes to eliminate hallucinations, thereby removing the risks associated with the AI ‘black box,’ to provides businesses with a trustworthy and transparent solution for outcomes and work performed. Its early customers include an international car manufacturer and an international oil and gas company, alongside several financial services and cybersecurity companies.

Lead investors were joined in the round by local business angels, Sequoia scout and DeepMind PM Lukas Haas. Maisa’s Vinci KPU works by leveraging existing LLMs – such as those from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google – differently.

The new funding will be used to continue developing the product and boost its already strong go-to-market strategy. It comes as latest benchmarking research designates Maisa as the first AI system to rank alongside OpenAI’s reasoning model o1 in graduate-level reasoning (GPQA) and that it outperforms latest frontier LLMs in coding (HumanEval), maths problem solving (Math), following procedures (ProcBench) and in accuracy. The key issue with generative AI is its inability to show and prove its work. This lack of true ‘traceability’ or lack of proof of its work has made many use cases in a business context non-viable. 

Maisa hopes to deal with open-ended and complex tasks that require auditability, radically increasing the value that AI can deliver for businesses. This could include performing supply chain analysis, credit loan approval processes or carrying out science-led research and development. 

David Villalón, co-founder and CEO of Maisa, commented: “Our launch of the Vinci KPU is significant in the development of agentic AI for businesses and for developers of AI applications and automation solutions.

“This is the first time agentic AI becomes transparent and auditable, instead of the current ‘black box’ that obscures its outcomes and represents a huge risk for businesses.

“We are delighted to have gained the backing of such legends in global tech development and leaders of some of the largest firms in the world, not least for the recognition that their investment gives to the significance of what we are building.”

Anna Piñol, investor at NFX, said: “Maisa is going to be a major player in RPA 2.0 helping businesses across the world transform their core, business-critical functions through AI. It will allow them to work faster, more efficiently and achieve new and radical ways of operating.

“This launch will be seen as a pivotal moment in AI development this year and as AI’s coming of age in practical, business-enhancing use.”