Valencia-founded Maisa has been named a Rising Star in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Programme 2026. The recognition follows a year of strong growth for the enterprise AI infrastructure company, which reported 400% year-on-year revenue growth and a fivefold increase in its client base. The programme identifies high-growth technology companies across Europe with strong scalability and market potential.
The timing reflects something bigger than one company's success. Enterprises across regulated industries are moving past the experimentation phase with AI, and many are running into a wall.
The numbers are sobering. While nearly 88% of organisations now use AI in at least one business function, only about 38% have successfully moved AI beyond pilot projects into full production. Some estimates suggest as few as 5% of enterprise AI pilots scale into production with measurable impact.
Why does this happen? The reasons vary, but governance gaps, integration complexity, and limited visibility into how AI makes decisions are consistently cited. In regulated industries like banking, insurance, and energy, that lack of transparency isn't just inconvenient. It's a compliance risk.
Regulators and internal risk teams are raising the bar. Organisations need to show not just that AI produced a result, but how it got there. That's a very different requirement from what most AI tools were designed to deliver.
Maisa's answer to this problem is what it calls "digital workers" — AI systems that execute complex, end-to-end business processes with full traceability. Rather than relying purely on probabilistic model outputs, the platform structures tasks into verified, step-by-step execution flows. Every action is recorded in a Chain of Work, giving organisations a clear record of what was done, why it was done, and how outcomes were reached.
The system runs on Maisa's proprietary Knowledge Processing Unit (KPU), which combines contextual AI reasoning with deterministic execution logic. In plain terms: the AI doesn't just produce answers, it follows a governed process to get there, with built-in validation at each step. This reduces the risk of unverified outputs spreading through workflows undetected.
For industries where documentation and accountability are non-negotiable, that architecture matters.
David Villalón, Co-Founder and CEO of Maisa, put it directly: "Innovation alone doesn't move AI into production, but accountability does. Enterprises are no longer satisfied with impressive pilots. They need systems they can inspect, govern, and defend under audit. Our growth reflects that shift in market expectations."
One of Maisa's early enterprise clients is Elecnor, a global engineering and infrastructure group. Elecnor used the platform to automate internal operational processes through AI-driven execution.
The Director of Digital Transformation and Innovation at Elecnor described the experience: "We have been very happy about Maisa's adaptation to our needs and helping our team succeed with operationalising our standard operating procedures. It has been a collaborative experience where, within a matter of weeks, we moved from semi-structured operational guidance to a fully functional Digital Worker that enables us to manage our first AI-driven business operation, while simultaneously formalising a written standard operating procedure aligned with our business goals."
That kind of speed from concept to deployment is notable in an industry where AI projects often take months just to move past the evaluation stage.
Over the past year, Maisa has expanded operations across Europe and the United States, growing its team fivefold. The company is backed by a $25 million seed round led by Creandum and Forgepoint Capital International, with participation from NFX and Village Global. That capital is being put toward product development and further enterprise expansion.
The Deloitte Rising Star recognition adds external validation to a trajectory that the numbers already tell. As AI adoption matures, the companies gaining ground are not necessarily those with the most advanced models, but those building infrastructure that enterprises can actually put to work.
Maisa is headquartered in Valencia, Spain, and serves industries including banking, financial services, insurance, energy, and manufacturing.
