Mark Brooks
Executive in Residence/ Venture Partner/ Commercialization Advisory Council NC Biotechnology Centre/Longleaf Studios/NC Plant Sciences Initiative
Mark S. Brooks is a venture capital leader and recovering climate scientist who has spent two decades chasing bold ideas at the intersection of science, risk capital, and planetary health. He has led $70M+ in equity investments across agtech, biotech, and climate, building three global corporate venture platforms and co-founding startups of his own. Known for backing the unusual, the urgent, and the overlooked, Mark challenges conventional VC thinking while bringing a founder’s empathy, a scientist’s rigor, and a strategist’s edge to every bet he makes.
Seminars
Tuesday 26th August 2025
Fast Capital, Slow Science: Why We’re Starving the Next AgBio Revolution
12:00 pm
- Exposing the mismatch between fast capital and the slower path of real AgBiotech innovation
- Showing how current funding models create pressure to scale too soon, distorting incentives and starving strong science
- Proposing bold alternatives, including more patient capital, reimagined funding stacks, and strategies built on asymmetric insights
