May 15, 2026
Moderated by Rachel Ashton Lim, Associate Consultant, First Matter
Panelists
Dr. Philip Taylor CEO, Mad Agriculture and Cofounder, Mad Capital PBC and Mad Markets PBC
Philip grew up on a farm in Maryland, raised inside a family that mixed a conservative religious right side with humanist, non theistic Quakers. That blend shaped a creative philosophy that runs through how he thinks about theory of change, building movements, and the culture of his teams. He spent 15 years as an ecologist studying rainforests and carbon and nitrogen biogeochemistry before leaving academia, because the conceptual mind alone was not the frame in which movements get built. He started the Mad Agriculture nonprofit eight years ago to help farmers and ranchers transition into regenerative and organic agriculture, then launched Mad Capital and Mad Markets as sister public benefit corporations to address the money and market problems that block real change on farms.
Ziad Matar CEO, Veridi Technologies
Ziad is originally from Lebanon and studied in the Netherlands, with a background in industrial engineering and a master's in engineering and policy analysis. After short stints at Danone and Nestle convinced him that large corporations were not for him, he started looking for work that could be both profitable and high impact. He landed on agriculture, and then on soil, because 90 percent of food depends on soil and we still only know about 1 percent of the organisms living in it. Veridi started in 2022 with a 200 euro microscope in the botanical garden of TU Delft. Today the company builds technology to measure soil biodiversity through nematodes, the most abundant animal on Earth and the central indicator of soil life. The technology was validated by Wageningen University, and in 2025 the European Innovation Council recognized Veridi as a key enabler of the new EU soil monitoring law. The company is now entering commercialization with a strong focus on Brazil and its 50 million hectares of soybean.
How did you test your initial hypothesis and were there assumptions that broke and forced a pivot?
Philip Taylor
The starting hypothesis was that how we eat largely shapes how land is used, so any serious attempt at solving the climate poly crisis has to address agriculture and our relationship with place. In a farming context that work is values driven and tightly coupled to economics, since margins are thin and risk tolerance is low. So every recommendation Mad Agriculture makes is paired with enterprise budgeting at the field level, welding ecological and financial wellbeing together. The deeper craft is sense making and knowing when to micro pivot. Beginner's mind is the discipline, and the test of whether something is working is whether somebody uses it and says thank you. Mad Capital's first attempt at revenue based financing is the cautionary tale. Philosophically it was beautiful, since the lender and the farmer share the upside and weather the downside together. In practice no US farmer wanted it. They knew interest rates and annual cost of capital, and the new structure got side eyes across the board. The fix was time on the ground. He spent months living out of his truck and an Airstream trailer, parked on farms with his banjo, sitting in tractor cabs. That kind of proximity overturns assumptions quickly, which is why 80/20 testing beats waiting to be perfect.
Ziad Matar
Talking to end customers was just as essential at Veridi. The first big assumption that broke was the software as a service plan. Veridi expected that labs already had microscopes with cameras and would simply pay for better software. It turned out that the diagnosis of soil life and plant disease still mostly happens the way it did 70 years ago. So the team had to build their own machines. The second broken assumption was that an off the shelf microscope would do. After testing 20 to 30 different machines, none were good enough, which dragged Veridi into designing and manufacturing microscopes at scale. That nightmare reflects a familiar pattern, that you do not start a company because it is easy, you start it because you thought it would be easy. Deep tech adds another layer. He expected a base product in six months and it took four years and many millions. The de risking came from one of Veridi's first clients, who had just sold a nematode testing lab. The acquirer was difficult, and the relationship fell apart. So that operator joined Veridi as an investor instead, bringing insights that were arguably more valuable than the pilot itself. Setbacks come constantly, and a founder has to learn to be satisfied with what happened and keep moving.
How did you think about structuring your fundraise and using different types of capital?
Ziad Matar
When Veridi started in 2022 Ziad was 22 years old, pitching investors on giving him millions to count microscopic worms. Most venture capitalists had no expertise in the field and no patience for the agronomy, so the sell was brutal. Early grants kept the company alive, and the credibility shift came when Joachim Schneider, then CEO of Bayer Vegetable Seeds, invested and became a mentor. After that, investors started thinking that if the CEO of Bayer was in, the worms might actually be interesting. Veridi has stayed away from traditional venture capital so far, working instead with strategic investors, angels, and direct EU government funding. The result is a clean shareholder agreement and more negotiation room as the technology matures. Mission alignment matters, because impact and a fast exit do not always pull in the same direction. Being upfront with investors about what you want builds the right cap table, and once you can be selective, the right shareholders open doors that money alone cannot.
Philip Taylor
Alignment is the heart of it. The idea has to be mature enough to attract interest, and tools like Lean Startup and the Lean Business Model Canvas help cover the basics quickly. The rest is showing up, building relationships, and keeping investors keyed into the mission as it evolves. All of Mad's investors are mission aligned, with clear and known return expectations. Learning how to ask for money took years, to the point that Philip used all of his savings and went onto credit cards before he had the courage to make the ask. The reassuring part is that the people with money often share the same vision but have no idea how to get it done. The founder is the operator who can help that vision land, and the work is to find that connection and nurture it. The sweet funder dropping a million dollars is rare. Eight years in, every dollar still takes tenacious work, decks, data rooms, and a lot of sophistication. Different models require different financial fluency. A nonprofit's customer is its donor. Mad Markets is a Holdco private equity strategy that buys legacy mid market companies with a blend of debt and equity. Mad Capital is a 10 year closed end private credit fund structured around a typical 2 and 20, with rules for capital deployment, distributions, and tax. The clearer you get on what your vision needs, the more fundraising success you will have.
Ziad added a friendly warning that running three different fundraising machines at once is next level difficulty and not what most first time founders should attempt. Philip agreed with the paradox. Focus is everything at zero to one, and he is constantly breaking his own law by code switching across three companies that only work because they reinforce each other. Financing regenerative farms without a market to sell into would just collapse the whole system. Both founders also returned to mentors. Don't be afraid to ask. Many high performing people, especially after retirement, are bored and would be honored to take a founder under their wing.
Are there pointers for financing infrastructure projects in places like Jamaica, outside the first world AI tech default?
Philip Taylor
The Unreasonable Group in Boulder, led by Dan Epstein, is the first call that comes to mind. They have a long history of working with founders who need creative, blended, and sometimes concessionary capital. A cold outreach is likely to land.
How do you decide what capital structure actually fits the business?
Philip Taylor
Start with the asset class you are trying to influence and ask how it should best function. A typical private equity playbook says buy a business, rejuvenate it, and sell it in 10 years to give investors their money back. The problem with that for Mad Markets is the buyer at the end likely does not share the values, so the work gets undone. The model instead is a permanent vehicle. Investors sign up for an equity class that pays distributions from free cash flow once businesses become healthy, with no distributions in the first 5 years. Once conservative pro forma targets start to hit, distributions flow until investors are made whole plus some. The thinking gets codified in subscription documents with legal advisors, which gives both sides something to return to when things get hard. The other piece is to resist innovating on both the product and the financial structure at the same time. There are a lot of standard documents already developed for founders, and sophisticated investors are more comfortable with the standard. Squirrelly looking paperwork turns them off and creates drag.
Ziad Matar
A mentor told Ziad early that if you have the pen, you have the power. Veridi's shareholder agreement was written to be attractive to investors while still protecting the founders, and being upfront about what you want turns out to be attractive in itself. Geography also shapes the options. In the EU a lot of funding is public and non dilutive, and Veridi maximized that. The other discipline is to widen your horizons. The place you build your product is not always the place you will sell it. Veridi is building in the EU but seeing most of the traction in Brazil, which means staying open to a much bigger map.
Philip asked fellows to live into their full potential and follow Mad Agriculture on Instagram.
Ziad said the exposure from the panel itself is already a lot, and asked the Climatebase team to keep doing what they are doing.
Philip's hope sits in the people who choose to fully commit to the work. As he put it, "live to your full potential, fully send it, just absolutely go for it, and that would make me the happiest."
Ziad's hope is in flipping the moral calculus around profit. "Sometimes when you look at a company and a new idea, it can be a small step for the world and a huge leap for your bank account, and both can actually work together."
Regenerative agriculture — A farming approach that aims to restore soil health, biodiversity, and ecosystem function while producing food. source
Revenue based financing — A funding structure where repayments scale with a borrower's revenue, sharing upside and downside between lender and operator. source
Public benefit corporation — A for profit corporate form that is legally required to balance financial returns with a stated public benefit. source
Private credit fund — An investment fund that lends directly to businesses outside of the public debt markets, often with bespoke terms. source
Holdco — A holding company that owns controlling interests in operating subsidiaries rather than producing goods or services itself. source
2 and 20 — A common fund fee structure of a 2 percent annual management fee and 20 percent of profits as carry. source
Nematodes — Microscopic worms that are the most abundant animal on Earth and play a central role in soil food webs, while also being a major agricultural pest. source
Soil biodiversity — The variety of organisms living in soil, which supports nutrient cycling, plant health, and overall ecosystem function. source
Lean Business Model Canvas — A one page strategic planning tool that maps customers, problems, value propositions, channels, costs, and revenues for early stage ventures. source
Mom test — A discovery interview discipline that avoids questions that bias people, especially those who love you, toward telling you your idea is great. source
Non dilutive capital — Funding that does not require giving up equity in the company, such as grants, public funding, or certain debt. source
Mad Agriculture — Nonprofit helping farmers and ranchers transition to regenerative and organic agriculture through on the ground land and business support.
Mad Capital — Public benefit corporation that designs farm debt to match the business model and ecology of the farm, with longer notes and interest only transition years.
Veridi Technologies — Soil biodiversity company building automated microscopy to measure nematodes and other indicators of soil life at scale.
Wageningen University — Dutch agricultural research university that validated Veridi's technology.
European Innovation Council — EU body that in 2025 recognized Veridi as a key enabler of the new EU soil monitoring law.
Bayer Vegetable Seeds — The seed business whose former CEO Joachim Schneider became Veridi's first investor and mentor.
Unreasonable Group — Boulder based community supporting founders working on creative, blended, and concessionary capital.
First Matter — Climate tech commercialization advisory practice where moderator Rachel Ashton Lim works as an associate consultant.
Mad Farmer Poems by Wendell Berry — The poetry collection by Kentucky farmer poet Wendell Berry that gave Mad Agriculture its name and orientation.