Anti-fraud startup Acoru has raised €10 million in a Series A round to help banks detect and prevent AI-powered scams, money mule activity, and financial crime before transactions occur.
The round was led by 33N Ventures, with participation from existing backers Adara Ventures and Athos Capital.
Founded in December 2023 by cybersecurity veterans Pablo de la Riva Ferrezuelo and David Morán, Acoru is building a new category of Account Monitoring technology designed to combat the next generation of AI-enhanced fraud and money laundering.
The Rise of AI-Driven Fraud
As deepfakes, voice cloning, and social engineering scams proliferate, global fraud losses are nearing $500 billion annually. Traditional anti-fraud systems—focused on transactions or isolated events—struggle to detect Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud and other sophisticated, intent-driven attacks.
Acoru’s Account Monitoring Platform takes a different approach. Instead of just analyzing payments, it studies behavioral intent and network activity across both first-party (victim) and counterparty (mule) accounts to predict, rather than just react to, fraudulent behavior.
The system identifies pre-fraud patterns such as:
- Micro-transaction clusters
- Unusual payment routing or account interactions
- Behavioral anomalies consistent with social-engineering or AI-generated manipulation
By connecting these signals across channels—and even across banks—the startup enables fraud teams to intervene early, blocking suspicious accounts before funds move downstream.
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A Collective Defense Model for the Banking Sector
Through the Acoru Consortium, participating financial institutions can securely exchange account classifications and risk signals, creating what the company calls a “collective defense network” against cross-bank fraud.
“Scammers today have more powerful tools than ever before,” said Pablo de la Riva Ferrezuelo, CEO and Co-founder. “Our platform predicts future victims, money mules, and laundering attempts by detecting the earliest warning signals others can’t see. With our consortium model, banks can finally collaborate in real time — turning fragmented defenses into shared intelligence.”
The model also supports compliance with emerging shared-scam reimbursement regulations, helping banks not only detect and stop fraud, but also mitigate liability under new legal frameworks.
Backing From Leading Cybersecurity Investors
“Financial fraud is evolving faster than traditional systems can adapt,” said a spokesperson for 33N Ventures. “Acoru is pioneering a proactive approach to stop scams before money moves — a critical shift for global banking resilience in the AI era.”
The €10M funding will be used to scale engineering and data science teams, expand consortium partnerships across Europe, and further develop Acoru’s AI-driven intent detection models.
About Acoru
Acoru is a Madrid-based trusttech and fraud intelligence startup developing the world’s first Account Monitoring Platform for AI-driven fraud detection. By analyzing both customer and counterparty accounts, Acoru predicts and prevents APP fraud, scams, and money laundering before transactions occur. The platform connects banks through the Acoru Consortium, creating a unified intelligence network for proactive financial crime prevention and compliance.
