Maisa is a platform that enables enterprises to create and manage AI-powered digital workers capable of automating complex, knowledge-intensive business processes with complete transparency, traceability, and reliability. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Maisa co-founder and CEO David Villalón to gain a deeper understanding of the company.
David Villalón’s Background
Maisa founders David Villalon and Manuel Romera
Could you tell me more about your background? Villalón said:
“My journey into tech and entrepreneurship began early. While still in my first year studying computer engineering and business administration at the UPV (Universitat Politècnica de València), I launched my first startup, Walnov – a collaborative writing network. It was a bold move driven by a passion for experimentation. I wasn’t originally an entrepreneur by identity, but I’d always been a creator. Even before that, I was a magician, which surprisingly taught me many of the soft skills I still use today, like presence, storytelling, and thinking laterally. Thanks to the support from Startup UPV and Plug and Play, I was able to immerse myself early in the startup world and I was hooked.”
“Back in 2014, I ran a mini business editing videos for YouTubers, even before content creation went mainstream. I spent hours immersed in gaming, Twitch (formerly Justin.tv), and early internet culture, which pulled me closer to tech. Though I wasn’t formally trained as a programmer, I eventually taught myself what I would now call ‘vibe coding’ – focusing more on the creative flow than strict engineering.”
“A pivotal turning point came when I joined Voicemod during their hyper-growth phase, where I was part of the core team helping scale the company globally. During that time, I got my first deep exposure to AI, experimenting with GPT-2 and later gaining early access to GPT-3 in the Playground. I was already building chat-like interfaces with GPT-3 well before ChatGPT even existed. That hands-on experience gave me critical intuition into the limitations of LLMs: constant hallucinations, context loss, and a lack of robust reasoning.”
“I later joined Clibrain as Chief AI Officer, where I led AI initiatives and dove deep into real-world LLM applications. Around that time, I connected with my co-founder Manuel Romero and our shared insights into what wasn’t working in the market laid the foundation for Maisa.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Villalón shared:
“Maisa emerged from real frustration with the limitations of existing GenAI, LLMs and especially RAG-based solutions. By late 2023, we had already built our own proprietary RAG and ranker models and tested them at scale. What we found was alarming: hallucinations, poor accuracy in data retrieval, fragile multi-step reasoning, high error rates and extortionate costs.”
“These issues made it obvious that the architecture could not scale reliably. Worse, it lacked traceability, which is crucial for enterprise-grade use cases.”
“We also recognized that the core performance of GenAI – in terms of speed and the sheer volume of token generation – was on track to grow exponentially. That might seem like progress, but in reality, it meant these flaws would compound even faster. The combination of brittle foundations and explosive scale would lead to serious systemic problems.”
“It became clear that the conventional approach was fundamentally unsustainable. When you concatenate steps, the errors concatenate too, so we realised a paradigm shift was needed. The question became: what would AI look like if it worked like an operating system?”
“That’s how we built Maisa’s Knowledge Processing Unit (KPU) – a system designed to codify each AI step, like an operating system executes instructions. With the KPU, we introduced the concept of ‘Chain of Work’ – a fully traceable, deterministic execution framework that allows humans to “see the math,” so to speak. Every output can be audited and justified.”
“Our goal at Maisa is to create accountable, enterprise-grade AI, where traceability and transparency are core features, not afterthoughts. We’re not building chatbots. We’re building doers, AI digital workers that execute tasks with precision, reliability, and human-level adaptability based on our AI computer technology.”
“As a co-founder, my primary responsibilities are to define the vision, guide the product, and continue innovating around the core technology. I also lead strategic conversations with enterprise partners and investors, ensuring our roadmap aligns with both business needs and our long-term mission: making AI not just smart, but trustworthy.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favourite memory working for the company so far? Villalón reflected:
“One of my favorite memories was seeing Maisa beating frontier models in benchmarks and gaining recognition from the AI community. We became the first company to launch a reasoning model before OpenAI o1, continuously beating top state-of-the-art models in both March and October 2024. Later, we became the first AI system to outperform OpenAI o1 on reasoning benchmarks.”
“Another top moment was seeing our first enterprise customers successfully deploy Maisa’s Digital Workers to automate complex business processes, especially in high-stakes scenarios. A standout moment was when a major car manufacturer, recovering from a supply chain disaster, used Maisa to stabilise operations.”
“Their production had been severely disrupted due to a critical supplier failure, causing delays in vehicle assembly and major operational challenges. By deploying our AI agents, they were able to automate key workflows and improve decision-making, helping them navigate the crisis and restore operations. Seeing our technology play a role in their recovery was incredibly fulfilling.”
“A defining milestone was securing our $5M pre-seed round from top investors such as NFX, Village Global, and other industry leaders. Building on that momentum, we recently announced a $25M seed investment led by Creandum, with additional participation from Forgepoint Capital through its European joint venture with Banco Santander.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Villalón explained:
“Maisa Studio is an advanced Agentic Process Automation (APA) platform that combines the best of two worlds: RPA and AI. While conventional AI systems often fail on reliability, and RPA struggles with flexibility and scalability, Maisa overcomes these limitations by integrating AI-driven reasoning with process automation. It enables organisations to automate complex, knowledge-intensive business processes with full traceability, ensuring both transparency and accountability in critical operations.”
“Our flagship product, Maisa Studio, is a human natural language-based platform that lets businesses onboard and deploy AI-powered Digital Workers using natural language. This intuitive environment makes AI-driven automation accessible without requiring any programming expertise.”
“Our Digital Workers are AI Agents designed for deterministic execution in high-stakes enterprise roles like supply chain analysis, credit risk assessment, and compliance monitoring. They operate with precision and reliability, supported by the KPU, which ensures every decision is transparent and auditable.”
“To mitigate AI automation risks, Maisa employs Chain-of-Work, a proprietary methodology that ensures all AI actions are analyzable, avoiding common AI pitfalls like hallucinations.”
“Additionally, our Virtual Context Window provides infinite memory, allowing AI Agents to store, retrieve, and continuously learn from structured knowledge, adapting to evolving business needs.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any challenges in your sector of work recently? Villalón acknowledged:
“One of the most significant challenges in the field of enterprise AI automation is ensuring both reliability and compliance. Unlike traditional deterministic systems, most AI models today are probabilistic, meaning their outputs can vary unpredictably. For businesses that depend on precise, auditable processes, this inconsistency is simply unacceptable.”
“To address this, Maisa was designed with several key capabilities. First, it incorporates hallucination-resistant AI through deterministic execution, ensuring that outputs remain stable and predictable. Second, it offers full auditability, allowing every AI-driven decision to be fully explainable, traceable, and transparent (providing concrete data sources and know-how used). Lastly, Maisa features enterprise-grade integration, enabling seamless connectivity with existing workflows, tools, and data sources.”
“Another challenge we encountered was scaling AI across an entire organization. Many automation solutions require separate configurations for different use cases, leading to unnecessary complexity and increased costs. Maisa overcomes this by providing a unified platform that consolidates credential management, data indexing, and tool integrations. This approach not only simplifies implementation but also makes AI-driven automation more scalable and efficient for businesses.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since its launch? Villalón noted:
“Maisa began as a proof-of-concept, demonstrating that deterministic AI automation was not only possible but also highly effective. The first version of our technology was developed and launched with benchmarks in March 2024. From there, we focused on evolving our system into a more robust enterprise-grade platform, which took shape in November 2024.”
“Initially, we developed a PLG (product-led growth) offering, but after further iteration, we decided to pivot before full public launch and focused entirely on Agentic Process Automation (APA), ensuring our technology could handle complex, business-critical workflows with precision and reliability.”
“One of the key advancements has been the expansion of our AI Agents, enabling them to take on more sophisticated enterprise automation tasks. We have also optimised our KPU, enhancing decision-making traceability to ensure every AI-driven action remains transparent and accountable.”
“The next major technological evolution is our “Infinite Context” system, which achieves the highest level of data accuracy by accurately capturing know-how and human feedback while keeping it distinct from the pure intelligence of LLM models. This ensures AI-driven automation remains contextually aware, highly precise, and adaptable to evolving business needs.”
“Additionally, we have continued to refine Maisa Studio, making it even easier for businesses to configure AI Agents using natural language, streamlining deployment, and maximising adoption.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Villalón cited:
“Maisa has achieved several key milestones on its journey to redefining enterprise AI automation. In March 2024, we launched the KPU, making it the first reasoning model to market and delivering benchmark results that outperformed state-of-the-art models. This breakthrough not only demonstrated the strength of our technology but also played a crucial role in securing our fundraising efforts, bringing major US investors on board and providing the foundation for our next phase of growth.”
“By October 2024, we reached another pivotal moment with the launch of the new Vinci KPU, which outperformed OpenAI’s o1 and introduced Chain of Work, ensuring full traceability of reasoning and data sources. This was a major leap forward in building explainable and accountable AI automation, which can leverage frontier LLMs such as Google Gemini or Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet.”
“Momentum continued into December 2024, when we signed our first enterprise customer, marking the transition from cutting-edge research to real-world deployment. Just a month later, in January 2025, we successfully moved our proof-of-concept into full production, validating our ability to scale AI-driven automation in complex enterprise environments.”
“Now, as we move through the year, we are rapidly ramping up ARR, with our sales pipeline accelerating, reflecting the growing demand for transparent, accountable AI automation in mission-critical industries. Each of these milestones has reinforced our vision and the impact Maisa is set to have in transforming enterprise AI.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Villalón about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“One of our success stories comes from a leading car manufacturer, where Maisa was deployed to streamline complex workflows across production and supply chain management. By integrating our AI-powered Digital Workers, they transformed fragmented, manual processes – such as logistics planning and inventory management – into a fully auditable, AI-driven system. This not only improved process efficiency and real-time coordination but also ensured full traceability and enhanced decision-making transparency throughout their operations.”
“In financial services, a credit risk assessment firm integrated Maisa to automate risk evaluation and compliance reporting. Unlike traditional AI solutions that act as black boxes, Maisa provided fully explainable, step-by-step decision-making, making audits and regulatory checks effortless.”
“Finally, a renewable energy company used Maisa to simplify ESG reporting, ensuring accurate, real-time tracking of sustainability metrics across their global operations.”
Funding
When asking Villalón about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“In December 2024, we raised a $5 million pre-seed round from top investors, including NFX and Village Global – the VC backed by Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Bezos – along with Sequoia scout and DeepMind PM Lukas Haas. This funding was a major validation of our vision and technology, giving us the momentum to build a world-class team and bring Maisa to market.”
“We have since just announced a $25 million seed investment led by Creandum, with participation from Forgepoint Capital, via its European joint venture with Banco Santander. Both NFX and Village Global followed on and participated in the new round, too.”
“The new funding will support hiring across AI R&D, engineering, sales and customer success, as well as expanding Maisa’s growing footprint in Europe and North America.
“With demand for transparent, accountable AI continuing to grow, we’ve been scaling rapidly, securing enterprise AI automation contracts across multiple industries, including finance, supply chain, manufacturing, utilities (telecoms), and cybersecurity. Our Digital Workers are now being deployed by enterprise customers to automate complex business processes, continuously improving through real-world feedback.”
“With strong traction and increasing revenue, we’re excited about the next phase of Maisa’s expansion.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Villalón assessed:
“Maisa is targeting a massive Total Addressable Market (TAM) spanning labor automation, enterprise SaaS, and business process automation.”
“The labor market presents a $10–70B opportunity, even with just 1% market capture. Companies might be willing to invest 10–20% of their labour costs in automation solutions, keeping the majority of savings for themselves. With a conservative estimate that 20–30% of knowledge work tasks are automatable, this represents a huge market potential.”
“The SaaS market, currently valued at $250–300B annually and growing at 15–20% year over year, offers another significant opportunity. If Agentic Process Automation (APA) captures 15–25% of this market, it translates to a $25–$50 billion opportunity.”
“Additionally, the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) market is estimated at $15–20 billion, while the broader Business Process Automation market is valued at $60–80 billion.”
“Over the coming years, each of these three serviceable addressable markets is projected to expand into a $100B+ opportunity, positioning APA as a high-growth category in enterprise automation.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Villalón affirmed:
“Maisa’s Chain-of-Work methodology ensures that every decision is provable (“proof of work”) and auditable, making it the first AI system capable of automating complex, high-stakes business processes with complete traceability. Unlike conventional AI agent solutions, Maisa is built with accountability and determinism at its core, ensuring transparent, explainable, and fully auditable decision-making.”
“What truly sets Maisa apart is its hallucination-resistant AI, guaranteeing provable and traceable reasoning – a critical requirement for enterprises handling high-stakes workflows. Our KPU is designed for deterministic execution, eliminating the unpredictability of standard AI models and ensuring reliable automation at scale.”
“Additionally, our Virtual Context Window functions as an infinite AI memory, continuously learning, refining, and improving over time without requiring constant manual intervention. Unlike traditional RPA, which demands repetitive configurations for different workflows, Maisa’s scalable automation adapts across the enterprise, reducing operational overhead and complexity.”
“Security and compliance are foundational to our platform. Maisa is enterprise-grade by design, providing full AI traceability and regulatory alignment, making it the ideal solution for businesses that require both automation and accountability in critical operations.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals?
“Looking ahead, Maisa is focused on expanding into high-stakes industries where transparency and reliability in AI automation are critical. Key sectors include – but are not limited to – financial services, energy, and cybersecurity, where businesses require deterministic, auditable AI solutions to meet strict regulatory and operational demands.”
“A major priority is enhancing our AI Agents’ self-learning capabilities. By leveraging real-time feedback, Maisa will continuously refine and improve its automation processes, ensuring that AI-powered Digital Workers become smarter and more effective over time.”
“We’re also driving global adoption, aiming to establish Maisa as the gold standard for accountable AI in enterprise automation. As businesses increasingly recognize the need for explainable and scalable AI, we see an opportunity to lead the market with a next-generation automation framework.”
“Beyond automation, we’re exploring AI-driven innovation, enabling businesses to go beyond process efficiency and unlock new opportunities, products, and innovations. By integrating intelligent automation with creative problem-solving, Maisa is paving the way for AI to become not just a tool for optimization, but a driver of real business transformation.”
