Milan-based investment firm Eureka! Venture has launched a €20 million early-stage fund aimed at DeepTech companies, with Lazio Innova committing €16 million as the vehicle’s anchor investor.
Called Eureka! Fund II – Deep Tech Lazio, the fund will invest across proof-of-concept, pre-Seed, Seed and other early-stage rounds, with a focus on technologies that can move from scientific research towards industrial applications and commercial scale.
The fund is positioned as the successor to Eureka! Fund I – Technology Transfer, which was launched in 2020. This time, Eureka! Venture is widening its investment mandate while retaining its emphasis on proprietary technologies with substantial scientific and technological content.
Its investment strategy will cover spin-offs, startups and innovative SMEs, particularly companies moving through industrial validation, industrialisation and growth. The firm is looking for businesses built around intellectual property, scientific know-how and technologies that carry significant barriers to entry, whether the underlying product is hardware or software.
That gives the new vehicle a fairly broad DeepTech remit.
Eureka! Fund II will look at areas including climate change and the energy transition, sustainability and the circular economy, advanced manufacturing, mobility, infrastructure and logistics, security and defence, and longevity.
Its mandate also extends to technologies covered by Europe’s STEP framework, including advanced manufacturing and robotics, artificial intelligence and Physical AI, quantum technologies and materials science.
A Lazio focus, but not a Lazio-only search
While the fund has a clear regional mandate, Eureka! Venture does not plan to restrict its scouting efforts to Lazio.
The manager will search for companies nationally, while concentrating investment on businesses that already have, or intend to establish, an active presence in Lazio. The stated objective is not only to finance companies based in the region, but also to draw technology, expertise, businesses and additional capital into the local ecosystem.
Anna Amati, Partner at Eureka! Venture SGR, said the new fund builds on the firm’s previous technology-transfer experience while widening its focus to technologies including Physical AI.
She also pointed to Lazio’s research capabilities, technological expertise and industrial base as factors behind the strategy.
An unusual structure designed to bring private investors in
One of the more distinctive elements of the fund is how Eureka! Venture says profits and losses will be allocated between investors.
According to Chief Executive Stefano Peroncini, the vehicle uses an asymmetric allocation mechanism designed to benefit private investors, with the intention of lowering the barriers that can discourage private capital from entering DeepTech.
Peroncini said Eureka! Venture’s first fund had shown that proprietary technologies developed in Italy could address industrial and market needs internationally. The second fund, he said, is intended to build on that experience while encouraging more investors to participate in an asset class the firm considers under-represented in Italian investment portfolios.
That private-capital element is particularly notable given Lazio Innova’s €16 million commitment. Its anchor investment represents four-fifths of the fund’s announced €20 million size.
Andrea Ciampalini, Director-General of Lazio Innova, said the investment is intended to strengthen the region’s venture capital model around research and proprietary technologies, while bringing specialist DeepTech and technology-transfer expertise into Lazio’s investment ecosystem.
Building on Eureka! Venture’s technology-transfer strategy
Founded in 2019, Eureka! Venture is an independent asset management company supervised by the Bank of Italy and Consob.
It has raised more than €190 million across a group of investment vehicles covering technology transfer, marketing and advertising software, DeepTech, AI and UrbanTech, and the search-fund model for SMEs.
These include Eureka! Fund I – Technology Transfer, BlackSheep Fund, Eureka! Fund II – Deep Tech Lazio, Z_One Fund and ETA Fund.
The new fund also extends an investment approach Eureka! Venture has already pursued through its first technology-transfer vehicle. Eureka! Fund I has previously invested in companies including Astradyne, which raised €2 million in 2025.
The wider market around the new vehicle has also remained active. Financing rounds in Italy during 2026 have included companies working in robotics, seismic technology, critical materials, wireless power and Physical AI, while other European DeepTech businesses have attracted capital across industrial robotics, materials discovery and quantum computing.
For Eureka! Venture, however, Fund II is less about backing one narrowly defined technology category and more about finding science-led businesses capable of crossing the difficult gap between research, industrial validation and commercially scalable products.
With Lazio Innova providing €16 million of the €20 million vehicle, the next test will be how that capital is deployed across companies that can turn proprietary research into industrial businesses while building a meaningful presence in the region.
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