ABOUT THE ROLE
This is an open application for expressions of interest. Active recruitment for the role will begin later this year.
At DSV we’re looking for future Founders, entrepreneurially minded individuals with industry-specific technical and commercial domain expertise eager to solve urgent unmet challenges through venture building.
You will join DSV’s venture creation programme as a Co-Founder in Residence and work closely with the DSV team, using our methodology, to spin-out a new company. During the programme, you’ll work on all aspects related to venture creation in this opportunity area, including working out the optimal approach to solve for the desired outcome, building a team and building a viable business case. Once the new venture is incorporated with pre-seed investment from DSV, you and your co-founders will own the majority stake in the business and continue receiving support from the DSV team post-spinout.
THE CHALLENGE
The race to safely remove and store billions of tons (Gt) of CO2 by 2050 at <100 USD/ton, permanently, and without causing negative side effects, is in full swing. With over 100 direct air capture companies having entered the market over the last years the focus has been strongly on the capture side. Yet in order to reach the goal we simultaneously need to build a robust supply chain pre- and post-capture.
Looking at the post-capture supply chain for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods, storage is set to cover around half of prospective captured emissions by 2030, with carbon capture projects targeting 2030 as a milestone to ramp up significant carbon capture volumes, in an attempt to reach international climate objectives of Gt scale removals.
This supply and demand mismatch occurs despite theoretically sufficient geological CO2 storage potential in Europe (estimated at around 507 Gt), equivalent to over 100 years’ worth of CO2 emissions in the EU at 2019 levels. However, CO2 storage sites can take between 5 and 15 years to develop, depending on the existing level of characterisation of the area, while CO2 capture projects tend to be faster to implement and have high ambitions to scale up quickly. Therefore, we need to act now and unlock geological storage space, set up the necessary infrastructure, and ensure the logistics between the individual actors.
OUR APPROACH
In the context of the supply chain, we will face challenges around CO2 compression costs and optimal co-location (renewable energy access, CDR location, storage location) as well as supply-demand matching (overall volume but also the fragmentation of both sides). Specific challenges around storage are the integrity of the cap rock, rate of CO2 injection, required pressure for the injection as well as policy and licensing processes. Thus, we are very keen for us to explore business opportunities around CO2 transportation infrastructure, material development, CO2 logistics as well as secure long-term CO2 storage.
Requirements
- We are looking for a chemical engineer with experience in CO2 handling and deployment of CO2 transport infrastructure. Ideally, you should have a supply chain management background and experience in transporting gases (ideally CO2).
- Or a geologist/geochemist with expertise in the challenges surrounding geological CO2 storage with a good overview of the key players in the carbon market.
- You should have an entrepreneurial mindset and be urgently motivated to solve some of the world's most pressing environmental challenges.
- You have a broad knowledge base to draw upon and a passion for keeping up-to-date with the latest technologies.
- You are a creative thinker, enjoy thinking about the exceptions to the rule, and enjoy a good challenge.
- You have a strong desire to build a company and ideally have built projects and teams in the past. You are a good communicator and work well in a team.
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. Read more about one of our key tools here.
- We draw on opportunity area specific know-how provided by our network of Partners and Advisors;
- We provide £250k investment governed by our Investment Committee to incorporate the new venture and develop early proof-of-concept data that’s needed to attract high profile non-venture studio VCs. This funding is also key to get grant funding, which most often needs to be matched with private investment;
- We provide guaranteed income of £4,166 per month paid to each Founder in Residence as a consultancy fee until the company is launched and the pre-seed investment is secured;
- You and your co-founders will own a majority equity stake in the company;
- We provide continuous support after post spin-out, including fundraising, commercial partnerships, recruitment and team-building (amongst other things); plus
- There are dozens of Founders currently at DSV across sectors working collaboratively and supporting one another - a unique resource to draw on.
ABOUT DSV
Deep Science Ventures is creating a future in which both humans and the planet can thrive.
We use our unique venture creation process to create, spin-out and invest into science companies, combining available scientific knowledge and founder-type scientists into high-impact ventures.
We operate in 4 sectors: Pharmaceuticals, Climate, Agriculture and Computation, tackling the challenges defining those areas by taking a first principles approach and partnering with leading institutions.
