Thomas Peruzzi

Thomas (Tom) Peruzzi is a veteran European ad-tech executive turned investor and advisor. He is best known for his tenure at Virtual Minds, the Freiburg-based adtech specialist owned by ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, which he joined as Chief Technology Officer in 2017 and led as Spokesman of the Executive Board from 2021. In that role he oversaw the buildout and integration of the group's modular "full-tech stack," including subsidiaries Adition Technologies, The Adex, and Yieldlab. After more than eight years, he stepped down as Managing Director effective January 31, 2026, at his own request to pursue new challenges; his operational duties passed to co-Managing Directors Dirk von Borstel and Ricarda Jebsen.

Before Virtual Minds, Peruzzi spent roughly two decades in consultancy and (interim) management positions building and running technology platforms across media, publishing, and telecoms — for companies including Gruner + Jahr, Hubert Burda Media, Axel Springer, the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, Publigroupe, Laterpay, and the Styria Media Group. He served as interim CTO for Gigaset Elements, Laterpay, ifolor AG, and Spil Games, and was CEO of aicooma from 2003 to 2011. He studied at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences and remains active as a mentor and lecturer at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) and Salzburg University of Applied Sciences.

Peruzzi is also a recognized figure in industry self-regulation and privacy: he was elected Chairman of the IAB Europe TCF (Transparency & Consent Framework) Governance Board on September 28, 2021, having sat on the board since summer 2020, and is involved with the BVDW. Alongside his investing, he does technology and product due-diligence audits and advisory/board work through P-Hold GmbH. Most recently he joined the advisory board of the Austrian IoT consent-management startup APOCRAT, contributing expertise in technical operations.

• Invests personal capital, typically at seed/early stage, as a hands-on business angel — the classic angel model of equity for early money.
• Explicitly focused on e-commerce and content startups, extending into ad-tech, data-driven, and IoT/connected-device businesses that match his operating background.
• Brings deep technical operations and platform-scaling expertise — he accompanies deals with technology/product due diligence rather than acting purely as a financial backer.
• Comfortable taking advisory and board roles and interim executive positions, i.e., he adds value as an operator, not just a check-writer.
• Networked into the Austrian angel ecosystem (an investor in / connected to the startup300 business-angel network).