Hendrik Hey’s Digital Genesis Fund Brings Regulated Structure to Web3 Infrastructure

Key Takeaways

• The Digital Genesis Fund launched as a Luxembourg SICAV-RAIF with 55 million euros in operational assets, offering institutional investors a regulated entry point into Web3 infrastructure.
• MILC, the Fund’s first compartment, is a live metaverse platform backed by 20 million euros in development and a 35 million euro content library, providing a working model for tokenized media ecosystems.
• The Fund’s multi-compartment structure allows expansion into energy, automotive, real-world assets, and AI infrastructure, with the ION Power Grid partnership already demonstrating cross-sector applications.

The Digital Genesis Fund launched with 55 million euros in assets and a Luxembourg SICAV-RAIF structure for institutional investors. The Fund operates under the same alternative investment rules that govern private equity and hedge funds across Europe. 

The fund was initiated by Hendrik Hey, CEO of MILC (Media Industry Licensing Content) and a German media veteran who spent three decades building television networks in Europe before turning to blockchain. Hey founded Welt der Wunder in 1996 and grew it into one of Germany’s most recognized science television brands, eventually owning national TV stations in Germany and Switzerland.

Inside the First Compartment

MILC enters the portfolio as the Fund’s first active compartment. The platform has received more than 20 million euros in financing for technology, platform development, and creator tools. A content library valued by EY at approximately 35 million euros serves as an asset anchor, distinguishing MILC from the vaporware that has plagued blockchain ventures. The platform is fully developed and live.

The platform serves as a metaverse marketplace through which intellectual property can be tokenized, licensed, and sold. International producers and rights holders have already signed agreements to use it. MILC generates actual revenue rather than projecting hypothetical future earnings.

MILC exists because the global media has a structural problem. The creator economy now exceeds $300 billion in market volume, but the systems that track ownership and payments remain stuck in an earlier era. Content travels across borders instantly. Licensing agreements still require lawyers and lengthy negotiations. Royalty payments still arrive late, if they arrive at all. MILC automates the parts of the media business that have historically leaked value to intermediaries and administrative overhead.

“As digital economies mature, the question is no longer whether technology works, but whether we build the right economic architectures around it,” says Hendrik Hey. “We are not just building a platform. We are architecting the protocol that will power the immersive content economies of the next decade.”

Building on European Rules

The Digital Genesis Fund could have been domiciled anywhere. The choice of Luxembourg reflects a bet that European regulation will become a competitive advantage as Web3 matures. American regulators have treated blockchain projects with suspicion and inconsistency, launching enforcement actions that have driven capital and talent offshore. Europe went a different route. GDPR created clear rules for data. MiCAR established a framework for tokenized assets. The EU AI Act sets standards for the deployment of artificial intelligence.

The Fund aligns with all of these frameworks, enabling its portfolio companies to operate without the legal ambiguity that has plagued American Web3 ventures. Governance sits with 6 Monks as AIFM and Fund Advisor, Q Securities S.A. as Depositary, Ernst & Young handling the audit, and DLA Piper on legal structuring. This is not the sort of governance that characterizes most crypto projects.

From Media to Energy to AI

The Digital Genesis Fund operates as a multi-compartment vehicle, meaning each investment area is legally and economically separate from the others. MILC handles media. Additional compartments are planned for Energy Tech, Automotive and Mobility, Real-World Assets, and AI and Data Infrastructure.

MILC has already demonstrated cross-sector potential through a partnership with the ION Power Grid Association, a European nonprofit focused on decentralized energy distribution. The platform provides infrastructure for smart city simulations, enabling engineers to model how energy grids will perform before building them in the physical world. If a tokenization layer can track who owns a piece of music and automate royalty payments, it can also track who produces electricity and automate compensation across a distributed grid.

The investment pipeline includes ten identified targets across production, streaming, AI, and rights governance. One is a creative studio focused on AI-supported film and animation production. Another is a Web3 streaming platform that has already accumulated more than one million users. A third specializes in AI music production and holds over 70 patents in adaptive and generative music systems developed with Queen Mary University of London. Each target generates independent revenue today and stands to benefit from integration with the broader MILC infrastructure.

The Digital Genesis Fund arrives at a moment when Web3 needs fewer promises and more working systems. MILC provides live infrastructure to build on. The ION Power Grid partnership shows how that same infrastructure can support fields far beyond media. For investors who watched the Web2 era from the sidelines as platforms like YouTube and TikTok reshaped global markets, this structure offers something that earlier blockchain ventures could not: a regulated path in from the beginning.

About MILC

Hendrik Hey is the Founder of MILC (Media Industry Licensing Content), a pioneering company in the blockchain and metaverse space, with a strong background in media and content. MILC operates a real live metaverse platform that serves not only the media industry but also various industrial use cases. The company also focuses on Web3 consulting, aiming to support complex real-world industries on their way into Web3. MILC is a sister company of European media giant Welt der Wunder, which Hey founded over 25 years ago. For more visit their website: https://www.milc.global/.