Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
Mito is the Spanish word for “myth” and mythology is one of humanity’s oldest ways of sharing stories across generations. So it’s a fitting name for a company reimagining how stories are created and told. MITO is an AI-native video platform where filmmakers and AI agents work together to create long visual stories, from the first idea to the final cut. Its customers range from film production companies and ad agencies to internal creative teams at large corporations. Some generate entire videos with AI, while others use MITO in a hybrid workflow that combines studio shoots with AI-powered post-production. MITO is free to try, with enough credits on the free tier to create a few videos before deciding whether to upgrade. They are also hiring across growth, sales, product, marketing, engineering, and operations, so check out the open roles if you’re interested in helping shape the future of storytelling.
Co-founder and CEO Dr. Iñaki Berenguer is one of Spain’s most successful serial tech entrepreneurs and investors, having previously founded CoverWallet (acquired by Aon for $300M in just 4 years), Contactive/Klink (acquired by Thinkingphones), iPronics (raised $100M), and Pixable (acquired by SingTel). He holds a Master’s and PhD in Engineering from Cambridge, an MA from Columbia (as a Fulbright scholar), and an MBA from MIT. His co-founders, Danny Saltaren, CDO, and Arantxa Barcia, CCO, are both celebrated creatives from Spain. Arantxa is a filmmaker, and Danny is a designer who received Spain’s National Design Award from the King of Spain. They teamed up to create a next-generation film studio with an intelligent creative suite built for directors, brands and teams.
What’s the origin of MITO?
Last summer, my co-founder showed me an AI-generated video, and I immediately had that rare feeling that something major was about to change (the same feeling I had when I first used an iPhone, ChatGPT, or Waymo). AI video will transform entertainment and advertising, but also education, robotics, communication, and entirely new industries that have not been invented yet. I wanted to be a protagonist in that shift, not just an investor watching from the sidelines. At the time, creating long-form AI video was complicated and required technical knowledge. We saw an opportunity to make it accessible: a platform where people can create rich, long-form visual stories without needing to understand AI or code.
What sets MITO apart?
MITO is built by filmmakers for filmmakers, with a focus on long-form storytelling rather than short social-media clips. A 10-second TikTok or Instagram video is very different from a film, commercial, or music video that requires character development, story continuity, locations, visual style, music, and a coherent narrative from beginning to end.
We also built MITO as a multiplayer platform from day one. Teams can collaborate with one another inside a project, but they can also work with an AI director. Instead of dragging and dropping tools, users can describe the story they want to tell and have a conversation with the AI, which helps develop the creative direction and builds the project alongside them.
How does MITO inspire customer love?
Customers love three things: lower budgets, much faster turnaround times, and far more room for experimentation. A national TV commercial that once would have required two months of planning (permits, actors, locations, crews, lighting, sound, wardrobes, and equipment) can now go from brief to broadcast in roughly two weeks. More importantly, MITO dramatically expands creative exploration. With traditional footage, teams can only edit what they captured. With AI video, they can test different backgrounds, lighting, styling, characters, locations, and versions of the same concept before committing to a final cut. That makes it possible to prototype a film or commercial as an actual visual experience, not just a script or storyboard.
Tell us about some recent milestones that MITO crushed.
About a month ago, we launched our AI Director. Previously, users had to configure a lot of elements themselves: selecting characters, prompting, choosing a model, setting duration, and more. Now they can simply chat or speak with the AI Director about the story they want to create. It can suggest shots, ask questions about orientation and style, offer creative options, and then build the video project while the user stays in the loop.
We also recently acquired a small, highly technical AI company, Kluster AI. Their team is helping us build our own video model, while fine-tuning other parts of the product. It is helping MITO become much more technically ambitious behind the scenes.
How has your background shaped you as a founder?
Across my career, I have tried to build at the beginning of major technology waves. My first company was in photo-based social networking before Instagram; my second was SaaS; my third was insurtech; and my fourth built networking chips for AI data centers before AI infrastructure became a mainstream topic. With Mito, I believe we are again early in an inflection point because AI video will be central not only to entertainment and advertising, but other industries as well.
The sectors have changed, but the DNA of how I build companies has stayed consistent: a strong culture, deep respect for product and engineering, and an urgency to move quickly when a new opportunity appears. In AI, a product advantage can be copied in months rather than years, so the rule is simple: if you have a good idea, run as fast as possible.
Personally, I grew up in a very small town near Alicante, Spain, far from major cities. My father never went to school, yet I eventually studied at MIT, Cambridge, Columbia, and Princeton, built global companies, and had global exits. Coming from where I come from and ending up where I am, it’s almost impossible not to be an optimist. People sometimes call me a paranoid optimist: deeply optimistic about what’s possible, but with a constant sense of urgency.
Any advice for founders?
A great product matters, but distribution matters even more. You can build something exceptional, but if nobody knows it exists, it cannot create value. Strong distribution and growth attracts customers, talent, capital, and attention, resources that can be reinvested into making the product better. The goal isn’t simply to build something you’re proud of; it’s to create value and build the reach necessary to sustain innovation.
Fun fact:
I have run 19 marathons.
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