Acoru, headquartered in Madrid, is intensifying efforts to combat AI-driven financial fraud after securing a €10 million investment in a Series A round. The funding, led by 33N Ventures, also included contributions from existing supporters Adara Ventures and Athos Capital.
The new resources will enable Acoru to enhance its ability to help banks foresee and avert AI-enabled fraud and money laundering before transactions occur.
Generative AI impact on fraud
The rise of generative AI has given fraudsters access to new methods such as deepfakes and voice cloning, contributing to global fraud losses nearing $500 billion annually.
Current anti-fraud measures primarily focus on transaction events rather than preemptively identifying Authorised Push Payment Fraud or detecting early fraud intent signals.
Innovative pre-fraud detection by Acoru
Acoru aims to tackle financial fraud by allowing banks to identify criminal intent sooner
Acoru aims to tackle financial fraud by allowing banks to identify criminal intent sooner, preventing individuals from being used as unwitting money mules.
Their technology monitors activity across multiple bank accounts, not just the target account, evaluating and predicting risk through pre-fraud detection mechanisms. By examining unusual patterns or micro-transactions that indicate potential fraudulent AI activities, the system alerts banks to intervene before any funds are transferred.
Response to evolving financial regulations
This proactive fraud detection is crucial as new financial laws require banks to share the depreciation costs entailed in both authorised and unauthorised frauds. Founded in December 2023 by Pablo de la Riva Ferrezuelo and David Morán, Acoru leverages their founders' cybersecurity and fraud prevention expertise to address these challenges.
In two years, Acoru has grown to over 30 team members worldwide, achieving substantial revenue growth alongside collaborations with diverse financial institutions.
Industry perspective on AI fraud
The company has realised the inadequacies in current fraud prevention approaches
CEO Pablo de la Riva Ferrezuelo noted, "AI has changed the face of fraud and money laundering. You simply cannot expect technology built in 2010 to combat fraud happening in 2025."
The company has recognized the inadequacies in current fraud prevention approaches, striving to stay ahead of evolving trends through their consortium-based method that allows banks to share intelligence concerning risky accounts.
Support From 33N Ventures
Carlos Moreira da Silva of 33N highlighted the critical challenge posed by voluntary fraud, which remains one of the most difficult to manage in the present financial system. Acknowledging the rising sophistication of scams due to AI, Moreira da Silva praised Acoru's depth of expertise and actionable solutions, which made their platform easy to deploy within the banking sector.
"Only an exceptional team could design a platform this comprehensive, easy to deploy, and intelligent," he stated, further expressing confidence in Acoru's potential to transform financial fraud detection and prevention approaches.
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Acoru, the Madrid-based startup that stops AI-enabled fraud and money laundering, has raised a €10m Series A round led by 33N Ventures. Existing investors Adara Ventures and Athos Capital also joined the round.
The fresh funding will accelerate Acoru’s mission to help banks predict and prevent AI-powered fraud and money laundering before any transaction is initiated.
Generative AI-driven scams
Generative AI-driven scams – deepfakes, voice cloning and social engineering – are fuelling fraud losses. Fraud scams and bank fraud schemes amount to losses of nearly $500bn globally every year.
Existing solutions are not designed to detect Authorised Push Payment Fraud (where a victim is tricked into willingly sending money from their own bank account to a fraudster's account) or identify fraud intent signals; instead, they focus primarily on transactions, events, and sessions.
Fraudulent AI automation
Acoru helps banks detect criminal intent earlier and prevent users from becoming unwitting or complicit money mules. By continuously monitoring bank accounts, Acoru evaluates every event across all channels, not only from the target’s bank account, but also any account it interacts with. Its platform scores, classifies and predicts future risk through pre-fraud detection to build an intelligent model of each account.
Signals, such as multiple micro-transactions or unusual interaction patterns that suggest fraudulent AI automation, are monitored and then flagged to banks to prevent activity before a money transfer can be initiated.
This has become increasingly important as new financial regulations come into force mandating that victims of authorised push payments and unauthorised fraud are reimbursed by sharing the cost 50:50 between the sending and receiving bank.
Cybersecurity and fraud prevention industries
Founded in December 2023, Acoru is the second venture for founders Pablo de la Riva Ferrezuelo and David Morán, both cybersecurity and fraud prevention experts.
Within the last two years, Acoru has rapidly built a global team of more than 30 people while posting strong revenue growth by working with banking and financial institutions of all sizes.
Pablo de la Riva Ferrezuelo, CEO and co-founder of Acoru, said: “AI has changed the face of fraud and money laundering. You simply cannot expect technology built in 2010 to combat fraud happening in 2025. The Acoru team has spent years within the cybersecurity and fraud prevention industries and realised we are failing to keep up with the changing fraud landscape.”
Innovative consortium model
Ferrezuelo added: “Scammers today have more powerful tools at their disposal than ever before. Our approach predicts future victims, money mules and accounts at risk of being laundered by detecting the earliest warning signals others can’t see."
"With our innovative consortium model, banks can finally exchange account classifications through a centralised network that creates a truly collective defence. This is a paradigm shift in how fraud is fought.”
Damaging and underestimated challenges
Carlos Moreira da Silva, Partner, 33N, said: “Voluntary fraud has become one of the most damaging and underestimated challenges in today’s financial system. It hurts individuals, families, and institutions alike. These scams are notoriously difficult to detect and stop, and with the rise of AI they will only become more frequent, more sophisticated, and more impactful."
"What impressed us about Acoru is not just their vision, but the rare combination of deep domain expertise and execution excellence of the founding team."
"Only an exceptional team could design a platform this comprehensive, easy to deploy, and intelligent. At 33N Ventures, we are proud to back Acoru as they redefine how financial fraud is identified and prevented.”
