Yes, It can be done and it works fine. I've been running with this for a few months.
The only catch is you must install Esxi 6.7 (as this version allows the of Zimaboard's Realtek 8111 drivers to be injected into customised ISO installer image. Adding Realtek vibs to later ESXi versions is not possible. )
This below repo provides instructions and a Powershell script for creating an ESXi installer ISO compatible with Zimaboard. Within the repo is also an offline vib for the Realtek 8125 2.5Gbe NIC sold with Zimaboard. (latest driver with working vlan support)
https://github.com/itiligent/ESXi-Custom-ISO