DV

D11Z. Ventures

Heilbronn, Germany·Founded 2005·

Venture CapitalGrowth Equity

·d11z.com

D11Z. Ventures is the Heilbronn-based single-family-office venture capital arm backing the retail wealth of Lidl/Kaufland founder Dieter Schwarz. It was founded in 2005 as ZFHN Zukunftsfonds Heilbronn to drive structural change in the Heilbronn-Franken region, with its Born2Grow (B2G) seed subsidiary launched in 2013 to back early-stage deep-tech and life-sciences startups. In early 2024 the firm rebranded as D11Z. Ventures and sharpened its focus on artificial intelligence, deep tech, B2B SaaS and asset-light IoT across Europe. It operates as an evergreen fund with no fixed expiration date, writing initial tickets from EUR 100,000 to EUR 1.5 million with follow-on capacity, and has made 35-plus direct investments and roughly ten exits including Xenios (Fresenius), Inspekto (Siemens) and echobot (Leadfeeder/Dealfront). It gained wider prominence as a co-investor in AI champion Aleph Alpha alongside the Schwarz Group. Led by Managing Partner Tom (Thomas) Villinger, the firm is headquartered in Heilbronn with an office in Munich.