Co-founder in Residence, Next generation insecticides and pest control

About the role

We are looking for future Founders: entrepreneurially-minded individuals with deep technical and commercial domain expertise, who are eager to solve urgent unmet challenges through venture building. This role offers a unique opportunity to work at the forefront of agtech, leading a company solving challenges in off-target toxicity from insecticides.

Responsibilities

• Refine, improve and complement existing scoping work on: The technical thesis for pest control that is scalable, durable and effective without off-target effects (neglect and technical tractability); Commercial neglect (IP strategy, differentiation, competition); Value proposition (market, value capture, techno-economics); Regulatory strategy & positioning; Fundraising strategy & pitching; Optimising company strategy for the most rapid and derisked path to Series A.
• Prepare for Investment Committee (IC) will involve fulfilling our investment criteria, recruiting advisory and co-founding team members, and parallel fundraising for additional expansion funds.
• Assuming success at IC, you will receive pre-seed investment from DSV and Grantham Foundation, and spinout the company in 2027. You and your co-founders will own a significant stake in the business and continue receiving support post-spinout.

Requirements

• Essential Values: Highly motivated by unsolved challenges in insect pest control, and driven to challenge the status quo in agrochemicals; Impact driven, take the initiative, make things happen, and think from a first principles perspective to figure out what's really needed; Strong entrepreneurial spirit and mindset, demonstrated through impactful innovation, and an ability to work in ambiguous, unstructured but fast-paced, demanding and pressurised environments; Collaborative nature, with the ability to work effectively in cross-functional teams.
• Essential Experience (must-have): Previous Founder experience; Previous C-suite experience; Previous fundraising experience (from VCs); Commercial & BD expertise (licensing, partnering, collaborations); Strong track record of building and leading successful teams.

Benefits

• By joining DSV, you'll be joining a team of operators who have founded companies and led translation of science at some of the most respected universities, charities, funds and government agencies.
• We provide optimised, purpose-built, proprietary tools, resources and processes to help create high-impact ventures from scratch, using our venture creation methodology.
• DSV and Grantham Foundation's extensive network incl. leaders of biotech VCs, technical & commercial domain expertise, and wide-ranging portfolio company capabilities.
• We jointly provide an initial £250k (:$340k / €290k) investment governed by our Investment Committee to incorporate the new venture and develop early proof-of-concept data that is often needed to attract high profile non-venture studio VCs. This funding is also key for obtaining grant funding, which often needs to be matched with private investment.
• You and your co-founder(s) together will own the majority equity stake in the company.
• We provide minimum guaranteed income of £4,166 per month (fixed), paid to each Founder as a consultancy fee until the company is launched and pre-seed investment is secured.
• We provide continuous support post spin-out, including fundraising, commercial partnerships, recruitment and team-building (amongst other things).