Multiverse taps into Toronto’s fintech and startup ecosystem
In 2019, four colleagues founded Multiverse Computing in San Sebastian, Spain. Before too long, Enrique Lizaso, Román Orús, Alfonso Rubio and Sam Mugel set their sights on a North American expansion to bring their flagship product, Singularity, to a new market. The target sectors were companies in finance, insurance and energy. As the team considered locations for its first international office, Toronto had the perfect combination of characteristics:
- A strong quantum startup community
- A deep pool of fintech talent
- A strategic location in the North American market
“Toronto has phenomenal talent, especially in finance, and a really powerful ecosystem for quantum companies,” said Sam Mugel, Chief Technology Officer at Multiverse.
Toronto is home to multiple quantum startups — Agnostiq, Boxcat, CogniFrame, Entangled Networks, Netramark, Proteinqure, Quantum Bridge Technologies, Solid State AI, and Xanadu, to name a few. The companies cover the full range of technology from machine learning to workflow orchestration to photonics. Multiverse has an ongoing partnership with Xanadu, a full stack quantum company, focused on Xanadu’s open-source software, PennyLane.
Toronto’s vibrant startup scene is largely due to Creative Destruction Lab. This incubator, which spun out of the University of Toronto, has the world’s leading Quantum program designed for seed-stage science and tech companies. This program has brought together many of the world’s most influential quantum startup founders, investors, and corporate partners.
More than 50 quantum startups have been through the Creative Destruction Lab bootcamp, including Multiverse.
In addition to serving as the home to multiple quantum startups, Toronto-Waterloo region is one of the biggest tech corridors in North America, with more than 15,000 tech companies, 5,200 startups and 250,000 IT workers. Microsoft and Google both have offices in Toronto and there are 6 universities in the city. The city ranks 7th in the top 10 list of fintech companies and is in the top 20 list of global talent and expertise and funding.
One of the office’s first projects was with Bank of Canada. Multiverse engineers worked with researchers at the bank to simulate adoption rates of digital currencies. The team studied varying rates of adoption as well as the impact of widespread compared to limited use of these virtual currencies. A research paper about the study is in the works.
Multiverse’s Toronto team also is involved with projects relating to Canada’s National Quantum Strategy — a multi-million dollar effort that aims to make the country a world leader in the development and use of quantum computing hardware. This includes building a national quantum communications network and enabling the government and key industries to be early adopters of quantum sensing technology.
In addition to the robust quantum ecosystem in Toronto, Multiverse works with companies in nearby Waterloo and Kitchener, not to mention the quantum hub in the Montreal/Sherbrooke area to the northeast.
Singularity: Quantum and quantum-inspired solutions
Singularity, the company’s first software product, is designed to make it easy for all business users to work with quantum and quantum-inspired algorithms to optimize difficult business problems. Business users in all sectors can leverage the power of quantum computing via this first-of-its-kind software platform that uses quantum and quantum-inspired algorithms. Singularity solves relevant use case challenges for enterprises across all industries by allowing users to access the power of quantum computing via a simple interface that includes a Microsoft Excel plug-in. Singularity also includes a Python Package that analysts can use to build custom analyses within the platform. Prior quantum computing experience is not required to use this software.
In addition to working with corporate customers, the Multiverse team has been building connections with local and regional universities. Students in the Quantum Information Science bachelor’s degree program at the Université de Sherbrooke are using Singularity for internal testing and development of quantum computing educational materials.
“We also designed the course with the University of Victoria, British Columbia, on quantum computing for industry,” Sam said.
Building the quantum ecosystem
During a few short years, Multiverse’s Toronto office has established many important partnerships and worked with industry-leading organizations. The company recently announced a partnership with Mila, an artificial intelligence research institute, to advance quantum AI and ethical AI research. This partnership also includes collaborations with biotech/pharma firms to bring quantum computing to the pharmaceutical industry
Multiverse Canada is working with PINQ, a digital transformation agency supported by the Université de Sherbrooke and the Quebec Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy. PINQ’s platform is based on classical, hybrid and quantum digital solutions, and is accessible to all Quebec companies and to all university academic networks and college centers for technology transfer.
“PINQ is a supercomputing cluster, based out of Sherbrooke, that hosts a lot of quantum computing services,” Sam said. “They’re going to be hosting and distributing Singularity.”
The Multiverse Canada team is actively supervising students in master’s and doctoral degree programs at a dozen universities across Canada. Multiverse has applied for the prestigious Mitacs cluster program, allowing them to fund up to 100 internships from select academic groups.
