Barcelona-based Enzo Ventures has closed its second fund, a €20m fund which is backing Southern European founders at the pre-seed stage.

Fund II follows Enzo’s strategy it began in 2023, when it invested in its first fund, which backed Southern European founders and diaspora entrepreneurs at the very start of their journey.

Enzo says Fund II has been designed around a simple principle: keep doing what worked in Fund I, a €10m fund, but with more capital and a stronger platform behind it.

Enzo defines diaspora entrepreneurs as those founders leaving cities like Barcelona and Lisbon to build companies in cities like London and Paris, while maintaining deep ties to the talent networks and entrepreneurial communities they came from. The firm is looking to identify these founders before the broader VC market.

The new fund is deploying cheques of between €250,000 and €600,000. The new fund has already invested in three startups: London-based Cori Clinical and investments in startups in Madrid and Zurich.

Enzo’s portfolio includes Orbio and Murphy, which Enzo says are now generating millions of euros in revenue. Enzo was founded by Edgar Vicente and Iván Fernández Lucas, who both have a background in startups.

Vicente was just 23 when he co-founded Enzo.

The pair launched Enzo to address what they saw as a gap in Southern Europe: early-stage capital that is founder-friendly, globally ambitious, and willing to take “day-zero” risk.

They believed many local VCs were overly conservative.

Vicente, founding partner, Enzo Ventures, said: “When we started investing in 2023, our conviction was that something structural was changing in Southern Europe.

“The new generation of founders coming out of the region was more ambitious, more technical and much more global from day one. We didn't want to build a fund around where companies were incorporated. We wanted to build one around where exceptional founders came from.”