Heinrich Zetlmayer

Heinrich Zetlmayer is a Swiss-based technology executive turned venture investor with 30+ years of operating and investing experience. He was educated at the Technical University of Munich and built an early career in management consulting, serving as a Senior Partner at Arthur D. Little (ADL), where he led the firm's Global Operations practice. He subsequently held the role of Vice President and Country Manager at IBM Switzerland.

He is perhaps best known operationally for his time in esports: as Co-CEO and supervisory-board member of ESL (the Electronic Sports League), he helped scale the world's largest independent esports league through to its 2015 acquisition by Modern Times Group (MTG) — a deal reported at roughly €74 million. He has also served as CEO of skaylink, a cloud/digital managed-services company.

In 2018 he founded Blockchain Valley Ventures (BVV) in the heart of Switzerland's "Crypto Valley," originally a spin-off connected to blockchain-trading pioneer Lykke. BVV pursued a hybrid model combining classic venture capital with digital-asset offerings, investing in AI, Web3, cybersecurity and other B2B technologies, with offices across Zug/Zurich and Singapore and a membership in the Draper Venture Network.

In September 2023, BVV was integrated into Munich-based early-stage investor yabeo. Zetlmayer joined yabeo as a General/Venture Partner to launch the "Emerging Tech Fund," bringing his team and BVV's existing portfolio (10+ companies, ~$50M AUM) into the new vehicle, which targets EUR 50 million for pre-seed and seed investments in AI, blockchain and cybersecurity.

• Invests at pre-seed and seed in technology-enabled, mostly B2B startups in AI, blockchain/Web3, and cybersecurity (plus cloud/edge computing and digital assets).
• Check size up to ~EUR 500K per company (historically $100K–$1M, ~$500K sweet spot).
• In his own words on the Emerging Tech Fund: *"With a focus on pre-seed and seed investments in the Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Cybersecurity segments, we perfectly complement yabeo's ecosystem."*
• Stated philosophy: *"Emerging Technologies and Digitalization in general enable significant changes in the way we operate… when implemented correctly, these innovations contribute to societal advancement."*
• Favors founders applying emerging tech to concrete enterprise use cases (e.g., supply-chain management, trade finance, digital-asset payments) rather than purely speculative crypto plays; values a strong entrepreneurial mindset and operational execution.