Background & Biography
Mathieu Chanson works at the intersection of blockchain research and early-stage venture investing. European Blockchain Convention’s 2026 speaker roster identifies him as founder and managing partner of very early Ventures; his professional profile and the firm’s recent public activity also connect him to the business. IMD previously described him as a co-founding partner in Zurich. These sources support Switzerland as his professional base, without making a claim about nationality or private residence.
His academic record is unusually concrete for an investor biography. ETH Zurich’s repository records his 2020 doctoral dissertation, Towards the Economy of Things: Insights from the Convergence of Blockchain Technology and the Internet of Things. The title page identifies an earlier MSc in physics from ETH Zurich, while the University of St. Gallen’s 2020 institute report independently records the completed doctorate. His work therefore predates several later waves of institutional interest in tokenization and decentralized physical infrastructure.
Chanson’s published research also offers a more reliable account of his early technical interests than abbreviated conference biographies. In 2016, he co-authored A Decentralised Sharing App running a Smart Contract on the Ethereum Blockchain with Andreas Bogner and Arne Meeuw. The demonstration explored renting everyday objects through an Ethereum application, reducing dependence on a central intermediary. It was a research prototype, and should not be presented as evidence of a widely adopted consumer service.
Very early Ventures describes its role as supporting infrastructure builders and helping with product, protocol and token design. Its introductory investment thesis emphasizes technical involvement, including architecture decisions, on-chain analysis and incentive design. Those are statements about the firm’s approach, not proof that Chanson personally designed every portfolio company’s technology. They nevertheless establish the context in which his earlier research became relevant to a commercial investment practice.
Notable Contributions
One of Chanson’s documented contributions concerns the tension between verifiable data and user privacy. The 2019 Journal of the Association for Information Systems paper Blockchain for the IoT: Privacy-Preserving Protection of Sensor Data, co-authored with four researchers, developed a design framework for protecting sensor information. The team built CertifiCar through three iterative cycles to investigate the manipulation of vehicle mileage records. The research also evaluated the design against pharmaceutical supply-chain and energy-microgrid use cases. Its significance lies in examining a specific operational problem, rather than assuming that putting data on a blockchain automatically makes the underlying observations trustworthy.
A separate strand of his work examines capital formation. The 2023 Electronic Markets paper On the performance of blockchain-based token offerings, written with Marten Risius, Christoph F. Breidbach, Ruben von Krannichfeldt and Felix Wortmann, studied 305 token offerings. It compared initial coin offerings with exchange-mediated offerings and investigated the relationship between social-media signals and fundraising outcomes. The researchers found that the influence of those signals was weaker when a cryptocurrency exchange acted as an intermediary. This is a bounded empirical finding about the sample and fundraising mechanisms, not a formula for predicting token returns.
His venture work brings these interests into the selection and support of new companies. In a December 2024 IMD article, Chanson was among the investors describing founder quality as an important consideration when pre-seed businesses have limited operating evidence. The discussion emphasized the distinction between a credible long-term ambition and inflexibility, including a founder’s ability to respond to feedback. It supplies a documented account of his investment judgment without implying that a particular selection method guarantees successful outcomes.
Chanson has also appeared in public ecosystem-governance records. The 2024 Celo proposal to fund Stabila named him as a multisignature participant alongside Kevin Tharayil and Martin Volpe. The proposal described an initiative intended to support stablecoin adoption and related ecosystem activity, and identified him as a founding partner of very early Ventures. Being named in that arrangement is evidence of a defined governance responsibility at the time. It does not establish that he ran Celo, controlled its stablecoins or remains a current Stabila officer.
Community work is another visible part of his record. An ETH Blockchain Club event listed him as the investor speaker in a session on taking a university blockchain project toward a first fundraising round. The European Blockchain Convention separately listed him among the judges for its September 2026 startup competition. These activities connect him with founders outside a private investment process, while leaving the commercial results of those relationships to be assessed separately.
Why Katharos.ai Follows Mathieu Chanson
Chanson is relevant to the less visible stage of infrastructure formation: the period before a protocol has broad adoption, when its financing, technical design and intended users are still being defined. His research provides specific evidence of engagement with distributed applications, data integrity and token fundraising. His investment role then places him among the people evaluating which early teams receive support. Katharos.ai follows that combination because decisions made at this stage can influence the systems that later financial applications depend on.
There is also a useful continuity across his work. A sharing application raises questions about intermediaries; sensor-data research raises questions about trust; token-offering research raises questions about the information investors use. The editorial interest is in how those questions reappear in investment choices and founder support. This is an interpretation of his documented work, rather than an assertion that his papers validate the investment thesis of his firm.
Areas to Follow
- How very early Ventures’ technical investment thesis develops, and which publicly documented portfolio relationships demonstrate sustained product involvement. - Whether infrastructure supported at the pre-seed stage finds paying users and dependable operation beyond fundraising announcements. - Chanson’s published assessments of token incentives, decentralized infrastructure and the relationship between applications and underlying networks. - Further research, teaching and ecosystem-governance participation, with dated responsibilities separated from current appointments.
Reporting Scope
This profile distinguishes Chanson’s personal authorship and named roles from the collective work of research collaborators and venture teams. PMG Investment Solutions also lists him as an investment manager in its private-markets team. The reviewed public pages do not explain the contractual relationship or allocation of time between that listing and very early Ventures, so no employment transition is inferred. Fund returns, personal holdings and private financial information are outside this profile.
Areas of Influence
Investment & Founders is the principal category because Chanson’s current public role concerns early-stage venture formation. Exchanges & Infrastructure captures the technical systems he studies and the firm’s stated investment focus. Community, Media & Education reflects his published research and founder-facing events. His governance participation and research on financing do not establish public regulatory authority, and he is not described here as a government policymaker.
Katharos.ai publishes this profile for information, based on the sources listed. Inclusion is not an endorsement of the individual, their organizations, or any investment product.
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