Exclusive: Optiak secures €4 million to develop an orchestration layer for enterprise AI.
Optiak, a startup that aims to create a modular operating system for enterprise AI, has emerged from stealth mode with a €4 million pre-seed funding round, approximately $4.7 million, led by Market One Capital, Next Tier Ventures, EA Ventures, Plug and Play EMEA Fund, and Mission. The founders state that they are addressing a common issue faced by large organizations: an excess of AI tools lacking centralized governance.
Their solution proposes an intermediary layer that connects various AI applications like chatbots, agents, and workflows to the underlying models, allowing for a single point for configuring security, governance, memory, observability, and cost optimization all at once, rather than on an individual application basis.
In practical terms, the company's platform can implement corporate policies to prevent IP or security threats before any employee interacts with a third-party model, redirecting requests to the most suitable and cost-effective model available.
The issue they are targeting is referred to as "Shadow AI," where employees utilize tools without IT oversight, resulting in internal data leaks in 46% of organizations according to Cisco's 2025 research. Furthermore, unsanctioned AI tools are responsible for approximately one in five breaches in IBM's 2025 breach report.
Many companies currently opt for rigid centralization with a single provider, which creates the risk of vendor lock-in and additional costs—an issue that Optiak's neutral layer intends to avoid.
The founders possess impressive backgrounds that provide them with access to enterprise opportunities. Co-CEOs Daniel Arenas and Ignacio Gamoneda lead Optiak, with Borja Balle serving as chief technology officer; Balle previously held a senior research position at Google DeepMind and Amazon, recognized for his work on large-scale differential privacy. The team also includes professionals with experience from Amazon, Google, and DeepMind.
"The initial wave of AI adoption was based on isolated solutions," stated Arenas. "At this stage, companies require governance, intelligent management, security, and observability to operate as an integrated system."
Balle articulated the technical argument as compounding: if a complete corporate ecosystem is connected within a single shared layer, improvements in latency, costs, or security will be organization-wide rather than localized.
The funding round was led by Market One Capital along with Next Tier Ventures, Plug and Play, and Mission, and included investors associated with SpaceX, Stripe, CrowdStrike, Amazon, and Epic Games.
Founded in 2025 and based in Spain with a focus on the EU, Optiak claims to have achieved the second-largest enterprise AI funding round recorded in Spain in 2026, a claim they attribute to themselves. Alongside the funding, the company has launched a Design Partner Program for select companies to collaboratively develop large-scale use cases with the founding team.
The product's objectives are clear; the upcoming challenge lies in whether enterprises will choose to implement this new control layer instead of consolidating with their existing provider.
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Exclusive: Optiak secures €4 million to develop an orchestration layer for enterprise AI.
Optiak, established by former members of DeepMind, Amazon, and Stripe, has secured €4 million in pre-seed funding, with Market One Capital leading the round. The company aims to bridge the gap between enterprise AI applications and the models that support them.