Who will finance the $3 trillion production capital gap? As infrastructure demands trillions and technology requires robust support, this keynote will explore the essential question of the role of capital-intensive technology in reshaping the boundary between venture and infrastructure finance. Firms that successfully bridge this gap will define the next era of deployment.

• Brett Bivens, Founder, Production Capital

The asset-light tech era is over. AI compute, robotics deployment, and defense systems require billions in physical assets before revenue scales. The opening panel explores the transition: when companies stop thinking in ARR multiples and start thinking in asset values, cash flows, and debt capacity.

• Drew Oetting, Founding Partner, 8VC
• Jacob Walker, Partner and COO, Client and Product Solutions, Apollo Global Management
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• Panel Chair:  

HaaS and RaaS generate recurring revenue but create significant working capital gaps. Manufacturers finance the bill of materials upfront and wait months for subscription revenue. This panel explores warehouse facilities, forward flow agreements, and contract-backed lending structures that enable the scalable deployment of robotics.

• Saman Farid, Founder & CEO, Formic Technologies
• Nat Kreamer, Founder & Managing Partner, Fairtide‍
• Marissa Sweeney, Principal, Special Opportunity, S2G
  
  • Aidan Madigan-Curtis, Partner, Eclipse Ventures

GPU-backed lending has scaled past $11 billion. Behind it is a full supply chain of capital-intensive infrastructure: chips, servers, assembly lines, data centers. The companies building and financing this stack are creating new credit structures in real time.

• Fiaz Mohamed, President and Chief Growth Officer, Bright Machine
• Thomas Galbraith, ,CEO & Co-Founder, Barkr‍
• Panel Chair: Anissa Gardizy, Reporter, Cloud Computing and Digital Infrastructure, The Information

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Capital-intensive companies need debt long before they look like traditional borrowers. But credit processes are built for large, late-stage firms with predictable assets and long track records. The result: deals die in diligence even when the capital is there. This presentation will explore how to build credit infrastructure that fits hardtech.

• William Godfrey, Founder & CEO, Tangible

Tech companies generate assets as they scale: loan portfolios, insurance policies, equipment fleets, receivables. Most founders don't know these assets can be financed. We’ll look at how to evaluate whether a novel asset can carry credit, and what separates a lendable asset from an interesting one.‍

Venture debt is one tool. Equipment financing, asset-backed lending, project finance, forward flow agreements, and ABS structures are others. This panel maps the full spectrum: when each instrument makes sense, how to sequence them, and how the capital stack evolves from Series A through infrastructure-grade deployment.

• John Markell, Founder, Armentum Partners
• Phil Koblis, Chief Strategy Officer, ATEL Capital Group
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  • Panel Chair: Trevor Cook, Lead, Carta Loan Operations

Managing complex facilities requires real-time covenant monitoring, IoT asset tracking, and automated data ingestion. Manual spreadsheets break. This panel examines the technology platforms being built to understand private credit as a scaling and asset class, and how they reshape what lenders and borrowers can manage.‍

• Don Muir, CEO & Founder, F2
• Kevin Hsu, CEO & Co-Founder, Lumonic‍
• David Hamilton, Head of Asset Management Research, Moody’s 
• Valentina Valencia, Co-Founder and CEO, Vaas
  
  • Panel Chair: Matthew Straus, Director, ABS Banking, Performance Trust Capital Partners

Most venture investors don't know credit. But the best ones are starting to bring lenders to the table alongside equity rounds. This panel brings together VCs who actively help portfolio companies build capital stacks that include credit from day one.

• Rajeev Oak, Investment Director, Prologis Ventures
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A mobile micro-factory. A carbon capture facility. A robotics fleet. None of these fit a standard credit box: the hardest problem in production capital isn't so much building the technology. It's translating what you've built into the contracts, performance data, and collateral structures that make a lender say yes. This conversation explores how founders turn novel assets into financeable ones.‍

• Oliver Beavers, Founder at Phosphor
• Aleksander Gampel, Co-Founder, Cuby Technologies

ABS structures can unlock billions but require bankruptcy-remote SPVs, dual collateral pledges, and sophisticated documentation. This conversation walks through how these deals actually get structured, what breaks along the way, and whether the complexity is worth it.

• Panel Chair: Vikas Kante, Chief Financial Officer, Mitra Chem

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The Office of Strategic Capital, SBIC Critical Technologies Initiative, and DOE Loan Programs Office are mobilizing billions in government-backed leverage. This panel explores how technology companies access these programs, how they work with private lenders, and what the application process actually requires

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• Panel Chair: Vikas Kante, Chief Financial Officer, Mitra Chem

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Despite needing trillions, technology credit markets remain fragmented. Are there education gaps between technologists and credit investors? Lack of standardization? Regulatory constraints? This panel will diagnose the bottlenecks and what needs to change for the market to reach infrastructure-grade scale.