From OpenAI to $500M in Project Finance for Forests | Living Carbon

<p>How do you turn degraded farmland into an investable climate asset? Living Carbon has raised $76M in equity and unlocked $500M in project finance by combining reforestation, biomass, and long-term infrastructure thinking.</p><p>Living Carbon restores degraded agricultural and mine lands through reforestation while developing biomass supply chains for industrial customers..</p><p>Maddie Hall is the co-founder and CEO of Living Carbon. Before launching the company, she worked at OpenAI and Y Combinator.</p><ul><li><p>How to unlock project finance for climate startups — Why demonstrating repeatable execution, securing blue-chip customers, and reducing underwriting risk enabled Living Carbon to raise $500M beyond traditional venture capital.</p></li><li><p>Why degraded land beats pristine forests — How abandoned farmland and former mine sites create stronger economics, lower land costs, and higher carbon additionality while avoiding competition with food production.</p></li><li><p>Building two businesses within one company — Why Living Carbon separates its carbon credit business from its biomass platform, generating multiple revenue streams without relying entirely on voluntary carbon markets.</p></li><li><p>Ignoring carbon market hype — Why Maddie focuses on building a business that will still matter in 2030 instead of chasing today&#39;s policy changes, pricing swings, or investor excitement.</p></li><li><p>Leadership lessons from scaling startups — Why founders should catastrophize less, become comfortable with rejection, stop optimizing for being liked, and build routines that support long-term resilience.</p></li></ul><p><br></p><p>--</p><p><br></p><p><strong>1️⃣ Join our confidential CEO community.</strong></p><ul><li>Private CEO group for VC/PE-backed climate tech founders navigating capital, strategy, and scale. Capped at 45 CEOs. </li><li>→ entrepreneursforimpact.com</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>2️⃣ Join 40,000 professionals who get our newsletter.</strong></p><ul><li>Climate tech finance, strategy, leadership. <strong>2-min read. </strong></li><li>→ entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>3️⃣ Leave a podcast review.</strong></p><ul><li>If you got value, take 30 seconds and <strong>do the community a favor</strong>. It helps push more capital and talent toward scalable climate solutions.</li></ul><p><br></p>