Multiverse has opened a technology hub in Edinburgh and appointed former Amazon executive Colin Mackenzie as Vice President of AI Engineering to lead the site.
The move extends its engineering presence beyond London following a recent USD $70 million funding round.
Mackenzie joins as the company's first senior engineering leader focused on AI, as Multiverse expands its product and technical teams. He will lead the Edinburgh operation and work on what it described as agentic products.
Multiverse plans to create 200 jobs over the next year across Edinburgh and London. The hiring drive is part of a broader expansion as it adds engineering staff and seeks to increase revenue per employee.
The Edinburgh office gives the company a second technical base in the UK outside the capital, widening access to engineering talent in Scotland, where financial services, software and university research have helped build a sizeable technology workforce.
Mackenzie brings more than a decade of engineering leadership experience. He spent six years at Amazon and, for the past three years there, worked on the generative AI platform used in the group's AI advertising products.
Earlier in his career, he held senior engineering roles at Virgin Money and Clydesdale Bank. He also took a start-up through an exit and founded his own business, according to the company.
Hiring plans
The expansion comes as employers and governments place greater emphasis on AI adoption and workforce training. Companies across the UK are under pressure to introduce AI tools while helping staff adapt to new systems and workflows.
Multiverse operates in that market through apprenticeships and training programmes in AI, data and engineering. It has partnered with more than 1,500 companies, and recent customer activity has included upskilling programmes at BT, Pan Macmillan, Capita, Keltbray, Evri and Addison Lee.
Those six organisations have launched more than 750 AI, data and engineering apprenticeships between them over the past six months. Multiverse argues that employer demand for practical training is rising as businesses seek productivity gains from AI rather than experimental projects alone.
Alongside the Edinburgh launch, the company is introducing an internal model to train new and existing technical staff. The approach pairs junior AI engineers with senior engineering leaders and treats mentorship as a formal part of the engineering function.
The model is intended to develop practical skills on the job while supporting product development. It also reflects a wider industry debate over how quickly businesses can train staff in AI tools as the technology changes faster than traditional reskilling programmes often allow.
In comments released by the company, Mackenzie linked the hiring strategy to the pace of change in the labour market. "AI is changing how people work faster than they can retrain for it, and without equitable access to AI skills a lot of people get displaced and left behind. We need to innovate at pace to solve this problem, and thankfully Scotland has the world-class AI talent required to help us do it. When we get it right, we change lives at a national scale," he said.
Growth strategy
Multiverse has attracted substantial investor backing as it has expanded its training business. It has raised about USD $600 million in venture funding to date, with investors including Schroders Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Index Ventures and General Catalyst.
The latest USD $70 million round has given the company fresh funds to increase hiring and add product development resources. Opening a hub in Edinburgh suggests a deliberate effort to spread engineering operations across more than one city while tapping specialist AI talent outside London.
Jay Richman, Chief Product & Technology Officer, outlined the commercial logic behind the decision. "We're building the AI adoption layer for UK and European employers. That requires depth in the product, and in the team building it. The market problem is significant: AI capability is advancing faster than workforces can absorb it, and employers are under real pressure to close that gap. Edinburgh gives us access to additional world-class engineering talent, Colin brings the track record to lead it, and our model of pairing high-agency junior engineers with senior practitioners means we're building capability as well as headcount," he said.