EIC Accelerator Awards Veridi €2.5 Million Grant to Scale Soil Biodiversity Diagnostics

From left to right: Richard Janissen (CTO/Co-founder), Joachim Schneider (CSO), Ziad Matar (CEO/Co-founder)

Veridi has been awarded a €2.5 million grant under the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator programme. This highly competitive funding recognises Veridi as one of Europe’s most promising ag tech startups and marks a major milestone in our mission to make soil biodiversity diagnostics mainstream, advancing soil health and soil life monitoring at scale.

Accelerating Our Technology and Growth

The grant enables Veridi to expand its team with key engineers and scientists, accelerating the upscaling of our proprietary imaging platform and AI algorithms for soil biodiversity analysis. Built around a custom robotic microscope and advanced machine learning, our system transforms nematode ecology data into measurable and actionable insights on the soil. What has traditionally been manual, slow, and costly is now automated, standardised and scalable.

With this support, we will also finance and ship additional machines to meet growing demand from affiliated partners across Europe and beyond. The funding ensures that Veridi can move rapidly from innovation to large-scale deployment, supporting soil health assessments under different conditions and geographies.

Supporting Europe’s Soil Future

Soil degradation represents a €50 billion annual challenge for the European Union, affecting food security, climate resilience, and biodiversity. By providing scalable, standardised soil health diagnostics grounded in soil and nematode ecology, Veridi is directly addressing this systemic risk.

This recognition positions Veridi as a key enabler of the EU Soil Monitoring Law. The regulation will require harmonised soil health assessments and improvement plans across the EU. As nematode-based indices grow in relevance, Veridi’s technology is uniquely equipped to deliver the data infrastructure necessary for implementation at scale.

We are grateful to the EIC, our partners, and our team for their trust and support. Together, we are building a future where soil health is no longer a hidden risk, but a measurable and manageable asset for sustainable growth.

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