One doesn’t normally think of ElevenLabs as a fintech company. But it’s certainly used by banks for customer service now. That is part of the reasoning behind Mouro Capital’s thesis, upon which it has now secured a $400 million first close for its third fund. This takes the fintech-focused investor to more than $1 billion in total commitments, as Banco Santander has once again backed the platform in full.
The raise is notable for its size, but also for its timing. European VC fundraising has been under pressure, and this sizeable raise stands in contrast with 2025, when European VC capital raised fell sharply. With Santander committing to the full first close, Mouro has fresh firepower to invest from seed to Series C across Europe, North America and Latin America. Across 26 exits, the firm says it has generated an average 4x return on invested capital.
The firm has already made seven investments from the new fund, including ElevenLabs, Sakana AI, Alinia and Burbank. And with these investments, it would appear that their investments in financial services are moving beyond the fintech label.
Speaking on to Pathfounders, General Partner Manuel Silva Martínez said the strategy remains anchored in “the intersection [of] financial services and technology,” but that the opportunity has widened.
“Financial services are everything,” he said. “And because it’s everything, there’s always a part of the industry that’s being innovated upon,” he said.
That helps explain why companies such as ElevenLabs and Sakana AI sit inside the new fund. They are not obvious fintech bets in the old sense. But Mouro’s view is that the next wave of financial services infrastructure will be built by companies whose core technology can be applied inside banks, insurers and regulated financial institutions.
“In the case of ElevenLabs, for example, which is a conversational technology, banking is a big industry for them,” Silva said. “Sakana is a bit more specific… developing language models for the banking industry in Japan.”
The Santander relationship remains central. The Spanish banking group has now backed Mouro’s programmes to the tune of roughly $1 billion over time. But Silva said they shouldn’t be called or considered their corporate venture arm.
“We operate independently from them,” he said. “When we talk to an entrepreneur, they know that we’re 100% aligned with them… because we ultimately invest for money.”
The fund’s pitch is that it can offer founders both conventional venture alignment and a route into one of Europe’s largest banking groups. “Many of our companies actually work with the bank commercially or as design partners,” Silva said.
Mouro says its previous funds backed companies including iZettle, acquired by PayPal for more than $2 billion, Ripple, TrueLayer, Upgrade, Creditas and Klar. Across 26 exits, the firm says it has generated an average 4x return on invested capital, with returns in the top 10% of global VC managers by net MOIC against PitchBook benchmarks.
But Silva argued that the market has shifted. The first wave of fintech was often about rebuilding banking products with better software and a fresher brand. That is no longer enough.
“In 2009… banks were extremely backwards,” he said. “Most of the innovation was just what I call business model innovation… doing the things that banks do, just better.”
Now, he said, “the driver of innovation is less so business model innovation [and] more tech innovation.”
That is why Mouro is looking closely at AI, governance, risk and compliance, wealth management, capital markets, payments infrastructure and stablecoins. Silva described GRC as a particular obsession because regulation itself can create markets.
“A regulatory change can create a new market and can change the behaviours of all the agents in the industry,” he said.
On wealth management, Silva said AI could push services once reserved for private banking clients further down the market. “A new technology is typically a way to democratize something,” he said. “AI ultimately is the ultimate equalizer.”
The firm is also keeping its crypto and stablecoin thesis alive. Mouro was an early investor in Ripple, which Silva framed as part of a longer-running view that blockchain infrastructure can create financial efficiencies.
“The whole stablecoin movement… is another way of creating payment efficiencies in the world,” he said. “It’s an old idea that we’re still very bullish about.”
Mouro will now seek to add more LPs to the platform for the first time, though Silva declined to give a final target. The team is based in London, Madrid and San Francisco and is expected to reach 15 people by the end of the year.
