Deep Science Ventures

Title: Commercial Co-founder, Grid flexibility and virtual power plants Hybrid Climate Full time London, England, United Kingdom Berlin, Berlin, Germany Los Angeles, California, United States Job Description: Join us to build a venture that makes grid flexibility and virtual power plants (VPPs) operate at scale, unlocking the full value of distributed renewable energy for the grid, for markets and for the planet. We are seeking applications from experienced industry or startup professionals, ideally with deep commercial domain expertise in energy markets, grid flexibility or VPP operations, and a keen interest in founding and scaling an impact-driven, high-growth company from the ground up. The Opportunity Deep Science Ventures is building a new climate tech venture to solve the coordination bottleneck that prevents virtual power plants from scaling across markets, asset types and time-horizons. Virtual power plants aggregate distributed energy resources (batteries, solar, EVs, heat pumps, flexible loads) and coordinate them to participate in energy markets and provide grid services. Today, the industry relies on optimisation methods (MPC, rule-based dispatch) that: - Break down at scale (~500+ DERs) due to combinatorial computational growth; - Rely on imperfect forecasts over short time-horizons and must be resolved daily; - Require centralised pooling of sensitive operational data from every resource; - Leave significant revenue on the table through poor cross-device and cross-market coordination. We are building a fundamentally new approach to VPP coordination using multi-agent reinforcement learning, operated over a distributed network of grid-aware compute nodes. Each device in the fleet learns its own optimal dispatch strategy while sharing coordination knowledge across the portfolio to deliver better economics, faster onboarding and privacy-preserving operation at scales that current methods cannot reach. Near-instant model inference allows operators to extract far more information from their operational data, allowing them to model increasingly complex "what if" scenarios and adapt to increasingly volatile grid conditions. The technology is validated through PhD research and outperforms industry-standard MILP/MPC optimization in simulation. The opportunity is global: rapid DER growth across the US, UK, and Europe is creating wholesale, balancing, ancillary service, and flexibility markets with layered revenue opportunities for coordinated dispatch. Every major market faces the same scaling bottleneck. We are now seeking a Commercial Co-Founder to partner with our technical founder and take this venture from formation through Series A and beyond. This is a ground-floor opportunity to build a company at the centre of the energy transition, creating the software and compute infrastructure that will underpin how distributed energy participates in markets as the grid decentralises. The Role As Commercial Co-Founder, you will own the venture's commercial strategy and execution from day one. Working hand-in-hand with the technical founder, you will: - Validate market demand and define target customer segments across VPP operators, aggregators and flexibility providers; - Build early customer, supplier and strategic partnerships with operators scaling their DER portfolios; - Secure commercial proof points (LOIs, MOUs, pilot agreements) with VPP operators facing scaling or onboarding challenges; - Lead fundraising from pre-seed through Series A, targeting climate tech and energy-focused investors; - Shape pricing, go-to-market strategy, and long-term commercial positioning across SaaS, performance-based and professional services revenue streams; - Navigate energy market regulation and grid code compliance in target geographies (US ISO/RTO markets, UK Ofgem/G99, European ACER frameworks or similar); This is a deeply hands-on role. You will personally develop customer relationships, negotiate early agreements and help build financial and techno-economic models. As the company grows, you will recruit and lead the commercial function. Location: Hybrid (US, UK, or Europe) Commitment: Part-time initially → Full-time post venture incorporation and spin-out (target Q3 2026) Equity: Meaningful founder equity + competitive salary post-incorporation Requirements Must-Have Experience: - Previous experience in either a startup/early-stage company environment or leading commercial scale-up in energy, grid, and/or flexibility markets; - A track record in fundraising from VC, grant writing, grant management and building commercial partnerships; - Exposure to energy market regulation and grid code compliance processes in at least one major market (US ISO/RTO, UK, or European); - A strong network across relevant industries such as VPP operators, aggregators, energy traders, utilities, DNOs/DSOs, ISO/RTOs or DER equipment manufacturers. Essential Capabilities: - Lead customer discovery to identify and prioritise target markets. From initial outreach with target customers through to binding pilot agreements, you will refine and deliver upon value propositions based on market feedback; - Identify and secure strategic partnerships with VPP operators, flexibility providers, utilities, DNOs/DSOs, and DER equipment vendors (battery manufacturers, EV charger companies, heat pump installers); - Co-develop and maintain techno-economic models, pricing strategy and financial models with the founding team, and lead commercial negotiations and contract structuring; - Lead fundraising efforts with commercial due diligence materials, building investor relationships and communicating commercial progress; - Demonstrated B2B sales and business development experience, ideally in energy, grid services or flexibility markets, with a track record from cold outreach to signed agreements; - Willingness to operate across strategic and administrative tasks, with resilience, strong self-direction and ability to thrive in uncertain environments; - Excellent communication skills with the ability to build credibility across diverse stakeholders (VPP operators, utilities, grid operators, energy traders, investors) and work collaboratively with a technical co-founder; - Ability to recruit and lead team members as the company grows, with a desire to build and scale an organisation aligned with company mission and values. Valuable "Nice-to-Haves": - Experience managing customer pilot programmes, developing go-to-market strategy and assessing partnership structures including licensing, white-label and joint development; - Ability to scope and manage regulatory pathways across multiple energy markets, coordinate with consultants and certification bodies, and substantiate performance claims with quantitative evidence; - Understanding of VPP operations, DER aggregation, wholesale electricity market structures (day-ahead, real-time/balancing, ancillary services, capacity) or flexibility procurement; - Experience at a VPP operator, aggregator or flexibility provider (e.g., Voltus, CPower, Flexitricity, Limejump, Statkraft, Kraken, Next Kraftwerke or similar); - Multi-market experience - understanding of how different market designs (US nodal/LMP, UK balancing mechanism, European zonal) create distinct optimisation opportunities; - Background in energy trading, portfolio optimisation or demand-side response. Benefits Joining a world-class team This venture is built within Deep Science Ventures. Deep Science Ventures is a leading deep-tech venture studio with a portfolio of 50+ science-led companies at a total valuation of ~$700m. You will have the support of a team who have founded companies and led translation of science at some of the most respected universities, charities, funds and government agencies in the world. The team is offering: - A majority equity stake in the new company between you and your co-founder, once the company is incorporated (target Q3 2026); - Access to proprietary venture-building tools and processes that are proven to create high-impact companies from scratch; - Access to a global network of investors, advisors and industrial partners across climate tech and energy; - Continuous post-spinout support including fundraising, commercial partnerships, recruitment and team-building.

Big Picture Bio is a seed-stage techbio company, backed by DSV, building a computational drug discovery platform that constructs causal biological networks from two primary sources: structured extraction of published experimental literature and large-scale primary human single-cell omics data. Our multi-agent AI system reasons over these networks to generate, simulate, and rank mechanistic hypotheses for combination therapies — with system accuracy verified against top-tier researchers at the Allen Institute. We are initially focused on oncology. The Role (remote, timezone-restricted) You will design and build production bioinformatics pipelines for new modalities—spatial transcriptomics, single-cell proteomics, and spatial proteomics—extending our existing scRNA-seq infrastructure. These pipelines feed directly into an agentic hypothesis generation system: the quality of what goes in determines the quality of every therapeutic hypothesis that comes out. You’ll work closely with our Head of AI & Technology (Dr. Francesco Moramarco) and Head of Platform (Dr. Moustafa Khedr) to: - Build end-to-end pipelines (ingestion, QC, normalization, integration, annotation, differential analysis) - Design modality-specific statistics: spot deconvolution, spatial autocorrelation, ADT normalization, protein-RNA joint embedding, segmentation, spillover correction - Extend hierarchical cell type annotation across modalities - Codify best-practice workflows into reusable templates for agent execution - Sanity-check outputs to catch batch effects and artifacts before they propagate

Role Description We are launching a new venture dedicated to eliminating toxic chemicals from our food supply and the environment. Our primary mission is to eliminate Bisphenol A (BPA) – a pervasive endocrine disruptor linked to the reproductive health crisis. You’ll work closely with the DSV team and the current Founder in Residence to co-found and spin-out a new company. Once the new venture is incorporated with pre-seed investment from DSV and the Grantham Foundation, you and your co-founder will own the majority stake in the business, and continue receiving hands-on support from the DSV+Grantham team post-spinout. This is a deeply hands-on role: as Commercial Co-Founder, you will own the venture’s commercial strategy and execution from day one. Working hand-in-hand with the technical founder, you will: - Validate market demand and define target segments; - Build early customer, supplier, and strategic partnerships; - Secure commercial proof points (LOIs, MOUs, offtake pathways); - Support or lead fundraising from VCs. Qualifications - Previous experience in either a startup/early-stage company environment or leading commercial scale-up in a relevant industrial setting (or both); - Experience in adhesives, coatings markets and food packaging is a strong plus; - A track record in fundraising from VC, grant writing, grant management and building commercial partnerships; - Exposure to regulatory processes for industrial chemicals/materials (ideally battery-related). Requirements - Lead customer discovery to identify and prioritise target markets, building relationships from initial outreach through to binding offtake agreements, and refining value proposition based on market feedback; - Co-develop and maintain techno-economic models, pricing strategy, financial models, and lead commercial negotiations and contract structuring; - Lead fundraising efforts with commercial due diligence materials, building investor relationships and communicating commercial progress; - Demonstrated B2B and B2C sales and business development experience, ideally in materials, chemicals or related industrial sectors, with a track record from cold outreach to signed agreements; - Willingness to operate across strategic and administrative tasks with resilience, strong self-direction and ability to thrive in uncertain environments; - Excellent communication skills with the ability to build credibility across diverse stakeholders, present to senior executives and investors, and work collaboratively with a technical co-founder; - Ability to recruit and lead team members as the company grows, with a desire to build and scale an organization aligned with company mission and values. 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. - 2/3 of the team have founded or led a company at C-suite and 65% have a PhD. - Our team dedicate several hours every week to each Founder or founding team to provide tailored guidance, resources and feedback covering every aspect of what it takes to successfully launch a new venture from both the tech and commercial perspectives. - 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). - Other Founders currently at DSV across sectors working collaboratively and supporting one another - a unique resource to draw on.

• Join DSV’s venture creation programme as a Founder-in-Residence and work closely with the DSV and Renaissance Philanthropy team to spin out the new company. • You will refine, improve and complement existing scoping work on the technical thesis for crop systems that can be primed for resilience in the face of increasingly unpredictable and severe climate pressures. • 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 de-risked path to Series A. • Preparation 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 and spinout the company by the end of Q2 2027.

Join us to build: we’re seeking 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 of climate adaptation for food security and the wider bioeconomy. The role is full-time, remote initially until venture incorporation and spin-out (circa end of Q2 2027), location TBD. ABOUT DSV Deep Science Ventures (DSV) is on a mission to create a future in which both humans and the planet can thrive. We use our unique venture creation process to create, spin-out, and invest in science companies, combining available scientific knowledge and founder-type scientists into high-impact ventures. Operating in four sectors—Pharmaceuticals, Climate, Agriculture, and Computation—we tackle the challenges defining these areas by taking a first principles approach and partnering with leading institutions. OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH RENAISSANCE PHILANTHROPY Driven by mutual conviction in the huge unmet need for priming plant resilience for climate risks, DSV has partnered with Renaissance Philanthropy to accelerate the development of venture creation at the intersection of climate risk, plant biology, and deployable agricultural products. ABOUT THE ROLE You will join DSV’s venture creation programme as a Founder-in-Residence and work closely with the DSV and Renaissance Philanthropy team to spin out the new company. During the programme you will refine, improve and complement existing scoping work on: - The technical thesis for crop systems that can be primed for resilience in the face of increasingly unpredictable and severe climate pressures (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 de-risked path to Series A. Preparation 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 and spinout the company by the end of Q2 2027. You and your co-founders will own a significant stake in the business and continue receiving support post-spinout. THE OPPORTUNITY Across global agriculture, climate volatility is no longer a ‘once-a-decade’ disruption - it is becoming an in-season operating condition. Drought and heatwaves are already driving severe regional harvest losses, with cascading impacts that reach far beyond the farm gate: price shocks, food insecurity, and destabilised livelihoods. Even where catastrophic crop failures are not occurring, the evidence base is clear that climate change is already depressing yields and amplifying climate-related production losses in major cropping systems. Despite this reality, most crop resilience strategies remain anchored in a static view of risk. Today’s dominant approaches focus on breeding or engineering permanent stress tolerance into plants, or introducing permanent protective structures. While effective under chronic stress, these solutions come with an inherent trade-off: technologies that protect yield under adverse conditions present a burden when conditions are favourable. For many crops - particularly rain-fed cereals and broadacre systems - this ‘carrying cost’ is economically unacceptable. In practice, growers are left exposed to short, acute stress events (such as a brief heat spike during flowering or sudden water-logging after planting) that can irreversibly damage yield but do not justify permanent genetic or infrastructure compromises. We believe this creates a compelling opportunity for a new paradigm: on-demand plant resilience. Instead of locking crops into a constant defensive state, plants could be temporarily primed to withstand stress only when risk is imminent - and then returned to a high-productivity mode once the threat passes. Advances across plant biology now make this vision increasingly plausible. Emerging tools such as RNA-based interventions, virus-enabled gene modulation, signalling peptides, and stress-responsive biologicals point toward the ability to transiently activate protective pathways, reprogram development, or stabilise yield-critical processes during vulnerable windows. This approach has the potential to address not only extreme climate shocks, but also the everyday volatility that quietly erodes agricultural value: mistimed flowering, pre-harvest sprouting triggered by humidity, transient root-zone stress, or short droughts that reduce grain fill. Importantly, these interventions could be deployed in-season, aligned with weather forecasts or early stress signals, creating a more adaptive and responsive crop protection toolkit. Commercially, this space remains wide open. Existing biostimulants and stress-mitigation products are often blunt, inconsistently effective, or poorly matched to specific climate risks. Meanwhile, large incumbents remain focused on conventional chemistry, genetics, or incremental biologicals, leaving little coordinated effort around truly inducible resilience platforms. At the same time, regulatory and technical signals show growing feasibility for novel biological and RNA-based crop inputs, while grower demand for tools that protect yield reliability under volatility continues to accelerate. We are seeking a Founder in Residence to build a company at the intersection of climate risk, plant biology, and deployable agricultural products. The ambition is to create a platform that makes climate readiness a controllable, on-demand trait - integrating scientific insight, smart delivery, and clear grower ROI into a scalable venture capable of redefining how crops are protected in an unpredictable world.

Role Description Join us to build a new venture eliminating off-target toxicity from agrochemicals by scaling next generation herbicides and weed control. We’re seeking an experienced entrepreneur to found and spin out a company with us focused on targeted, durable weed control without off-target ecological or human health impacts. The role is full-time, remote initially until venture incorporation and spin-out (circa end of Q4 2026), location TBD. 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 herbicides. You will join DSV’s venture creation programme as a Co-founder-in-Residence and work closely with the DSV and Grantham Foundation teams to spin out the new company. During the programme you will refine, improve and complement existing scoping work on: - The technical thesis for weed 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. Preparation 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 by the end of Q4 2026. You and your co-founders will own a significant stake in the business and continue receiving support post-spinout. Qualifications - Highly motivated by unsolved challenges in weed control. - Impact driven, take the initiative, and think from a first principles perspective. - Clear entrepreneurial spirit and mindset, demonstrated through impactful innovation. - Collaborative nature, with the ability to work effectively in cross-functional teams. Requirements - 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 - Initial £250k (~$340k / €290k) investment governed by our Investment Committee. - 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. - Continuous support post spin-out, including fundraising, commercial partnerships, recruitment and team-building. - Access to DSV and Grantham Foundation's extensive network. - Ownership of the majority equity stake in the company.