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Join as a Founder in Residence in Climate (Agriculture)
Join us to build a new venture eliminating toxicity from agrochemicals by scaling non-transferable pest control.
We’re seeking an entrepreneurial technical leader to found and spin out a company with us focused on species-targeted, durable pest control without off-target ecological or human health impacts.
The role is full-time, remoteinitially until venture incorporation and spin-out (circa end of Q4 2026), 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 GRANTHAM FOUNDATION
Driven by mutual conviction in the huge unmet need to eliminate toxicity from agrochemicals, DSV has partnered with Grantham Foundation to accelerate the development of non-toxic alternatives to pesticides (herbicides and insecticides). To learn more about the collaborative work that led to this opportunity area, please see report - "The Invisible Tsunami".
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 ag-biotech, leading a company solving challenges in off-target toxicity from pesticides.
You will join DSV’s venture creation programme as a Founder-in-Residence and work closely with the DSV and Grantham Foundation team to spin out the new company. During the programme you will 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.
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.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Conventional pesticides—spanning from neonicotinoids to atrazine—are a double-edged sword. They shield crops from pests but can wreak havoc beyond their targets. Pollinators like bees and butterflies, vital to 75% of global food crops, are in freefall—some bee populations have declined by over 43% in high-insecticide regions due to lethal and sublethal exposures that impair navigation, immunity, and reproduction. Pest resistance to widely used small molecules such as glyphosate and azoles is also a growing phenomenon, straining our available toolkit for safeguarding yields. This threatens both global food security and biodiversity. Beyond ecosystems, these chemicals can also cause acute intoxication, cancer, neurodegeneration, infertility, and hormonal disruptions in humans, driven by oxidative stress, DNA damage, and systemic inflammation - a problem being increasingly recognised especially in exposed rural populations. The transferability of these pesticides—spreading through soil, water, and trophic chains—amplifies their devastation, making sustainable alternatives non-negotiable.
Non-transferable pest controls have already shown scientific and commercial traction at the proof of concept level. For example, pheromone and other semiochemical approaches have shown success in disrupting pest mating patterns, while precision detection of weeds combined with electricide technologies is demonstrating some positive early trial data. However, the ability of non-transferrable pesticides to disrupt the incumbent agrochemical market remains relatively limited. Among the most important constraints in scaling adoption are high costs, coverage limitations, efficacy without affecting non-target species, and the risk of evolutionary ‘escape’. For example, Bacillus thuringiensis (‘Bt’) crops such as corn, cotton and soy - arguably the most prominent non-transferrable pesticide technology to date - have demonstrated a decline in efficacy after multiple growth seasons due to evolved resistance.
We imagine a future where we can protect crops without decimating ecosystems, collapsing food chains, or endangering human health. This is the vision driving our venture creation in this opportunity space: to halt ecological collapse and protect human health by reimagining pest control.
Our preliminary scoping of the area indicates high potential to develop approaches that meet our desired outcome: pest control that is scalable, durable, and effective without off-target effects. Emerging technologies, from RNAi silencing of pest genes through to engineered crop pheromone production, provide a set of promising tools that could provide the foundations for commercially viable propositions. However, each approach presents outstanding constraints that require solving. We believe that advances in diverse sectors, spanning from bioprocessing and genetic engineering through to GIS and precision agriculture tools, mean that it is the ideal time to tackle these barriers and we are looking for a Founder in Residence to take this on.Will you join us to lead the effort?
Requirements
WHO SHOULD APPLY
Essential Values
- You are highly motivated by unsolved challenges in non-transferable pesticide control, and driven to challenge the status quo in agrochemicals.
- You are impact driven, take the initiative, make things happen, and think from a first principles perspective to figure out what’s really needed.
- You have clear 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)
- Core science depth (PhD or equivalent industry R&D know-how) in genomics, molecular biology, entomology, plant pathology, virology and/or bacteriology (or similar), with breadth across technological areas relevant for non-transferable pest control such as:
- RNAi for insect/weed/fungal targets (design, stability, formulation/delivery, resistance mgmt.);
- Semiochemicals/pheromones (biosynthesis/bioprocess scale-up, deployment/mating disruption);
- Insecticidal proteins (incl. Bt/next-gen) or engineered in-plant expression;
- IPM design & field implementation with measurable on-farm outcomes.
- Translational execution: e.g. taking traits/actives from discovery to field efficacy, managing CRO/CDMO programs, building regulator/investor/customer-ready data packages; and/or partnership development (growers, CROs/CDMOs, suppliers) and scalable IP strategy.
- Cross-functional ownershipacross: R&D - Product - Regulatory - IP, evidenced by shipped results (trial outcomes, submissions, patents, launches); and/or EPA/EU experience and GLP study planning/oversight; or design of pivotal field trials supporting registration.
- Venture creation/fundraising; and/or product leadership in ag-biotech.
Equivalents considered: deep industry R&D in agrochem/biotech or a PhD with applied field work and comparable outcomes.
Preferred experience (nice-to-have)
- Previous Founder experience (in biotech).
- Previous C-suite experience (in biotech).
- Previous fundraising experience (VC).
- Commercial & BD expertise incl. network in agrochem/pesticide development (licensing, partnering, collaborations).
- Strong track record of building and leading successful teams.
Benefits
OUR OFFER
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).
- There are dozens of Founders currently at DSV across sectors working collaboratively and supporting one another - a unique resource to draw on.
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