Zach Hetzler
Verdia Diagnostics – MICRO Fall 2025
Published June 10, 2026
As part of our ‘Meet Our Founders’ series today, we introduce Zach Hetzler, CEO of Verdia Diagnostics based in Raleigh, NC. Verdia Diagnostics develops diagnostic monitoring tools for agriculture that reduce decision-making time for disease management and cultivation practices.
Q: What are you most excited about right now? What keeps you up at night?
A: Achieving revenue in 2026! We have multiple letters of intent to run paid pilots with grower partners, which is incredibly exciting. I’ve heard so many times through customer discovery and conversations with growers that they are really excited about new emerging solutions to make detecting and responding to diseases much more efficient. I’m working really hard right now to turn our lab-demonstrated prototype into a scalable, robust sensing network to deploy soon.
Q: How will your NC IDEA grant funds advance your company?
A: We plan to use the funds to validate our sensing system at-scale through pilot deployments, continue driving product development, and improve our go-to-market strategy. Equally important, being a recent NC IDEA grant winner has already been incredibly valuable by connecting us with new mentors and a network of successful startups. This new layer of support has strengthened our ability to deploy a scalable solution.
Q: What have you enjoyed most about starting your own company?
A: Starting a company is full of massive challenges, but it is also deeply rewarding. One thing I didn’t anticipate was the level of support available from individuals and community-level resources dedicated to helping entrepreneurs succeed. I’ve been blown away by the Triangle- and North Carolina-led entrepreneurial ecosystem, including organizations like the NC SBTDC, First Flight Venture Center, NC IDEA, RIoT, and many other industry-specific initiatives. Beyond that, fellow founders, investors, and business experts have been incredibly generous with their time and guidance. Knowing that so many people want us to succeed, from growers who want to use our solution, to ecosystem partners invested in our growth, has been one of the most motivating aspects about starting Verdia Diagnostics.
Q: What is one thing you wish you understood about entrepreneurship before you ever got started?
A: I wish I had understood how important it is to learn from other companies’ failures rather than focusing only on their successes. Much like social media, entrepreneurship tends to highlight major wins while overlooking go-to market missteps, internal pivots, and strategic mistakes that offer extremely valuable lessons. These failures aren’t often publicized, but trying to learn from what you can glean helps inform better strategy. It also reinforces the reality that rejection, setbacks, and course corrections are a normal part of the entrepreneurial process.
While visiting Raleigh, Zach recommends:
- You can’t go wrong visiting Umstead State Park and taking advantage of the free NC Museum of Art, which features an outdoor park with lots of neat installations.
- If you’re looking for a bite, I love Asian food and would point you to places like Seoul Grille or Chengdu 7. If you’re craving something more traditional NC-fare, you have to try barbecue at Ole Time Barbecue or get your brunch on at Big Ed’s City Market.
Support Verdia Diagnostics and Zach by:
- Following Verdia Diagnostics on LinkedIn and sharing our story! If you are in agriculture or horticulture, or know someone who might be interested, we’d love to hear from you. If you have experience developing integrated sensor hardware, IoT data platforms, or software UIs, you almost certainly have useful knowledge to our mission. If what we do resonates with you, we’d love to connect!
