Santander InnoVentures has secured a further $100m from Santander Group to invest in minority stakes in financial technology startups.
This adds to the $100m originally allocated to the London-based FinTech venture capital fund, which launched in 2014.
Ana Botín, group executive chairman of Banco Santander, said: “A deeper investment in our FinTech fund represents Santander’s success in investing in disruptive new technologies that will help our transformation towards being the best bank for our customers – in the simple personal and fair way they expect and deserve today.”
She went on to say the fund’s base in the UK has allowed it to benefit from London’s position as a FinTech hub.
“Santander remains committed to the UK and excited about its FinTech enterprises,” Botín added.
Santander InnoVentures’ fund is stage-agnostic and invests both capital and resources in companies across the world.
Those in the fund’s portfolio include point-of-sale innovator iZettle, blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic and digital wealth management technology provider SigFig.
Mariano Belinky, managing partner of Santander InnoVentures, said: “This commitment allows the fund to continue expanding the work we are doing across geographies and investment themes.”
He said the extra $100m will enable the fund to “explore new and exciting themes around artificial intelligence, machine learning, cognitive computing, digital banking and others that allow us to further improve Santander’s value proposition to its customers”.