Associate, New Venture Creation in Agriculture

ABOUT DEEP SCIENCE VENTURES

Deep Science Ventures (DSV) is a venture creator, combining available scientific knowledge and founder-type scientists into high-impact ventures, to build a future where both humans and the planet thrive.

DSV operates in 4 sectors: Agriculture, Climate, Pharmaceuticals and Computation tackling the challenges defining those areas by taking a first-principles approach and partnering with leading institutions.

OUR WORK IN AGRICULTURE

The global agricultural system is almost entirely extractive, designed to maximise yield at the expense of natural resources and biodiversity. This is driving us towards ecosystem collapse, and with it the threat of global food insecurity and lost ecosystem services.

Our team's mission is to solve this crisis, building ventures that can transform agriculture by pairing ecosystem service restoration with benefits for agricultural customers. This involves leveraging cutting edge technologies and the application of first principles thinking to conceive radical solutions. Using our proprietary methodology, we also have a bioregional focus to venture building, assembling consortia of commercial and local partners to create companies that can be successfully scaled across similar ecosystems for maximum impact.

You can read more about our work in agriculture here.

As an Associate you'll primarily focus on the earliest phases of venture creation at DSV i.e. scoping new opportunity areas or "themes" for venture creation and recruitment of Founding Analysts. What that means in practice is:

• researching and synthesising knowledge across multiple scientific, and industrial domains;
• developing hypotheses about solutions that could and should exist to solve for specific outcomes;
• identifying what specific expertise and skills are needed to develop the solutions; and
• recruiting future founders and supporting them through the early stages of venture building.

You can find more details about our scoping and venture creation methodology here.

It's an entry-level position designed to rapidly develop your understanding of the venture creation process at DSV and equip you with knowledge and skills for science commercialisation. While your main focus will be on opportunity analysis, you’ll be involved across all core functions of the business, including business development, fundraising and portfolio management to quickly develop a broad understanding of the scope of all activities within the business.

You'll be working in a tight-knit team, including our other Associates Will, Angel and Mildred, the Head of Business Development for Agriculture Chris, and reporting directly to senior leadership - our agri sector lead Edward is an exited founder, with expertise in biotechnology and biosecurity.

Requirements

Note: We are particularly interested in hearing from candidates that have experience in nature-based solutions (e.g. natural capital MRV and finance), digital agriculture (e.g. remote sensing and artificial intelligence) and / or agriculture ‘beyond the farm gate’ (e.g. post-harvest supply chains, agricultural economics and regenerative market development).

• Deep technical understanding (Masters or PhD level) in a subject area that has direct relevance to our goals for restorative cultivation (spanning from earth sciences to animal health, and everything in between);
• Demonstrated ability to learn fast in new and diverse technical domain areas;
• Demonstrated interest and/or experience in applied science and agritech is a must;
• Ability to take your own initiative, develop new ideas and build things - you're driven by curiosity and the desire to create new solutions with demonstrable positive impact;
• Previous work experience in the agribusiness or consulting sectors is considered a plus.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and discretionary bonus scheme;
• Flexible working environment (remote or hybrid) and generous holiday allowance;
• Rapid personal development and massive learning curve;
• Working with some of the most ambitious and impact-driven individuals you'll ever meet;
• Be part of building the next generation of ventures solving for human and planetary outcomes.