Eureka! Venture Hits €20M First Close for Deep Tech Lazio Fund

TL;DR

Eureka! Venture SGR has hit a first close of over €20 million for Eureka! Fund II – Deep Tech Lazio, the successor to its 2020 Fund I – Technology Transfer, with Lazio Innova, the Lazio region's public development agency, anchoring at €16 million alongside a pension fund and an industrial-engineering competence center as private co-investors. The fund backs proof-of-concept through early-stage deep tech companies working on climate and energy transition, advanced manufacturing, robotics, physical AI, quantum technologies, materials science, mobility, and defense-adjacent technologies, with a mandate centered on Lazio but including national scouting. No final target has been disclosed, so this first close is the number to anchor on, not a completed fundraise. It matters because it's a rare example of a regional public development agency underwriting the large majority of a specialized deep tech fund's opening capital, a model that gives Italian deep tech founders outside Milan's startup gravity a dedicated, well-capitalized path to seed funding.

Key Takeaways

This is a first close, not a final number, and roughly 80% of it is a single public LP. Lazio Innova's €16 million against a first close of just over €20 million means private and institutional co-investors, including a negotiated pension fund and an industrial-engineering competence center, are filling the remaining fifth. That's the inverse of how most venture funds are LP-diversified, and it's a deliberate design choice under the fund's "asymmetric allocation of profits and losses" mechanism, meant to de-risk the return profile for the private capital that follows the public anchor in. Whether that ratio shifts toward more private capital at a later close is worth tracking.

The fund explicitly targets technology transfer and industrialization, not just early product bets. Deep tech backed by IP, scientific know-how, and high barriers to entry is a fundamentally different underwriting exercise than software seed investing, and a fund built around spin-offs and innovative SMEs moving from proof-of-concept into scaling is positioned to catch companies that generalist seed funds often pass on for being too capital-intensive or too slow to obvious traction.

Regional public capital is becoming a real deep tech funding lever in Italy, not just a subsidy program. Structuring public money as an actual fund LP commitment, rather than as grants or soft loans, means Lazio Innova's capital behaves like venture capital: it needs a return, it sits alongside private co-investors, and it's deployed by a professional GP rather than a government committee. That's a meaningfully different (and more market-tested) model than typical European public innovation funding.

This is Eureka! Venture's second dedicated vehicle in roughly a year, following the €55M Z_One fund for AI and urbantech. Running Fund II – Deep Tech Lazio alongside Z_One and the firm's earlier Fund I – Technology Transfer suggests Eureka! is building a family of thesis-specific, regionally-anchored funds rather than one generalist vehicle, a strategy that lets the firm match LP appetite (public and private) to a narrower, more legible mandate per fund.

Fund Overview

Fund Name: Eureka! Fund II – Deep Tech Lazio
Fund Size: First close of over €20 million (final target not disclosed)
Stage: Proof of concept through pre-seed, seed, and early-stage; also industrial validation and scaling for spin-offs and innovative SMEs
Check Size: Not disclosed
Geography: Lazio region, Italy, with national scouting
Focus: Deep tech and STEP (Strategic Technologies for Europe's Prosperity) sectors: climate/energy transition, sustainability, advanced manufacturing, robotics, physical AI, quantum technologies, materials science, mobility, infrastructure, security and defense, and silver-age/longevity
Key LPs: Lazio Innova (anchor, €16 million, via the Lazio Venture 2 initiative under PR FESR 2021-2027), plus a negotiated pension fund ("fondo pensione negoziale") and an industrial-engineering competence center as private/institutional co-investors

Why This Fund Matters

Italian deep tech has a well-documented funding gap relative to its research output: the country produces strong technology-transfer candidates out of its university and research-institute system, but historically has had far fewer specialized funds willing to underwrite the longer development timelines and higher capital intensity of hardware, materials, and IP-heavy startups compared to software. A fund explicitly built around technology transfer and industrialization, rather than app-layer or marketplace bets, is targeting exactly that underserved segment.

The Lazio-specific anchor is also a statement about where Italian deep tech capital formation is happening. Rome and the broader Lazio region host a meaningful concentration of aerospace, defense, and research-institute activity, but venture capital in Italy has historically clustered around Milan. A public LP the size of Lazio Innova putting €16 million behind a dedicated regional deep tech fund is a direct attempt to build local capital infrastructure rather than leaving Lazio-based deep tech founders to chase Milan or pan-European funds for their first institutional check.

The public-anchor-plus-private-co-investment structure, with its asymmetric profit and loss allocation favoring private capital, is worth watching as a template. If it works, it's a replicable way for other regional development agencies across Europe to mobilize public innovation funding into professionally managed venture vehicles instead of grant programs, which tend to have weaker selection discipline and no real portfolio construction logic.

The Team

Eureka! Venture SGR is led by Stefano Peroncini as Amministratore Delegato (CEO/Managing Director), who framed the fund's asymmetric profit-and-loss allocation mechanism as a tool to lower barriers to entry for private capital and, over time, build a broader base of private money dedicated to Italian innovation, an asset class he noted remains underweight in Italian investor portfolios. Anna Amati serves as Partner and described Fund II as a further step in consolidating the firm's deep tech and technology-transfer vertical, extending the thesis from Fund I toward higher-potential strategic technologies like Physical AI, while continuing to back both pre-market research spinouts and later-stage startups and SMEs entering an industrialization and growth phase. On the LP side, Andrea Ciampalini, Direttore Generale of Lazio Innova, and Roberta Angelilli, Vice President of the Lazio region and its economic development commissioner, both spoke publicly to the fund's role in linking regional research to industrial and market applications. The firm's own materials describe an investment team with more than 25 years of combined venture investing experience; individual venture-team members beyond Peroncini and Amati were not named in primary sources reviewed for this piece.

Early Portfolio

Eureka! Venture's broader platform has raised over €190 million to date across five vehicles: Eureka! Fund I – Technology Transfer (launched 2020, advanced materials, built with universities and research centers), the BlackSheep Fund (marketing and advertising software), Fund II – Deep Tech Lazio itself, the €55 million Z_One Fund (AI and urbantech), and the ETA Fund (a search-fund model targeting SME acquisition). The firm also runs a parallel regional vehicle in Puglia built on the Fund I strategy, its first experience applying this specialist approach to a specific regional ecosystem, and Fund II – Deep Tech Lazio extends that regional-platform model to Lazio. Portfolio activity cited in connection with the firm's deep tech thesis includes Astradyne, a spacetech company that raised €2 million in 2025. Specific investments to be made from Fund II – Deep Tech Lazio itself had not been announced as of this first close.

What This Means for Founders

Deep tech founders based in or willing to establish a presence in Lazio, working on proof-of-concept through early-stage technology in climate/energy, advanced manufacturing, robotics, physical AI, quantum computing, materials science, mobility, or defense-adjacent categories, are the direct target for this fund. Spin-outs from Lazio's university and research-institute ecosystem, in particular, are likely to be a core sourcing channel given the fund's technology-transfer framing and Eureka!'s Rome office presence since 2022.

The value-add is likely to be strongest for founders who need patient, technically literate capital willing to underwrite a longer path to commercial validation than a typical seed fund tolerates, plus help navigating the industrialization and scaling phase once a technology clears proof-of-concept. Founders should also expect the fund's structure, a public anchor LP with a mandate tied to a regional development program, to come with some expectation of Lazio-linked economic impact, alongside the usual return objectives.

Fund Momentum Take

The most interesting thing about this fund isn't the first-close headline number, it's the 80% public-anchor structure inside it. Most "public-backed" European VC funds spread government capital across several LPs or route it through fund-of-funds vehicles like the EIF; having a single regional agency commit the clear majority of a fund's opening capital directly is a more concentrated bet, and it means Lazio Innova's own selection and monitoring discipline matters almost as much as Eureka!'s. Worth watching at a later close: whether the pension fund and competence-center co-investors are joined by more private capital, which would shift that ratio toward a more conventional LP base.

The risk to watch is regional mandate creep diluting investment discipline. Funds anchored by economic-development-focused public LPs sometimes face soft pressure to fund good-story-but-weak-return companies for regional job creation or visibility reasons, especially when the anchor holds this much of the cap table. Eureka!'s asymmetric loss allocation structure, which protects private co-investors first, is a sensible mitigant, but it's the private capital's discipline that will really test whether the fund stays return-driven.

Our bet: this is a legitimate and underappreciated model for closing Europe's regional deep tech funding gaps, and it's worth watching whether other Italian regions, or regions elsewhere in the EU with similar research-institute density but thin local VC, try to replicate the Lazio Innova anchor-LP structure rather than defaulting to grants.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Eureka! Fund II – Deep Tech Lazio?
It's a venture fund from Eureka! Venture SGR that just hit a first close of over €20 million, targeting proof-of-concept through early-stage deep tech companies, anchored by a €16 million commitment from the Lazio regional development agency Lazio Innova.

Is €20 million the total fund size?
No. €20 million-plus is the first close figure; Eureka! Venture has not disclosed a final target size for the fund, so it should be treated as the fund's opening capital rather than its ultimate size.

What sectors does the fund invest in?
Climate and energy transition, sustainability, advanced manufacturing, robotics, physical AI, quantum technologies, materials science, mobility and infrastructure, and security and defense, all framed under a broader deep tech and technology-transfer thesis.

Who are the fund's investors?
Lazio Innova, Lazio's regional economic development agency, anchors with a €16 million commitment through the Lazio Venture 2 initiative under the EU's PR FESR 2021-2027 program. Private and institutional co-investors at first close include a negotiated pension fund and an industrial-engineering competence center.

Is this Eureka! Venture's first fund?
No. It's the successor to Eureka! Fund I – Technology Transfer (2020) and follows the €55 million Z_One Fund for AI and urbantech, making this the firm's fifth vehicle, across which it has raised over €190 million to date.

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