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 Q1 2027), location TBD.
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.
Driven by mutual conviction in the huge unmet need to eliminate off-target toxicity from agrochemicals, DSV has partnered with the 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".
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:
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 in 2027. You and your co-founders will own a significant stake in the business and continue receiving support post-spinout.
Conventional herbicides - spanning from 2,4-D to atrazine - are a double-edged sword. They play a vital role in shielding crops from weeds but can wreak havoc beyond their targets. Repeated herbicide exposure can eliminate as much as 50% of soil microbial biomass and fauna, and aquatic plants in agriculture-fed waterways lose up to 80% of their photosynthetic efficiency, with cascading effects across both terrestrial and aquatic trophic chains. Beyond ecosystems, these chemicals have been associated with acute toxicity, cancer risk, endocrine disruption and neurodegenerative effects in humans, driven by mechanisms including oxidative stress, DNA damage, hormonal interference, immune dysregulation, and chronic inflammation - a problem being increasingly recognised especially in exposed rural populations. The persistence of herbicides across environments and the combinatorial effects of adjuvants only amplifies their devastation. The number of herbicide resistant weed species has also increased 10-fold since the 1980s, straining our available toolkit for safeguarding food security. Taking one specific example, glyphosate-resistant Amaranthus species can reduce maize yields by as much as 91%. Therefore, to deliver both human and planetary thriving, alternatives approaches to weed control are imperative.
Multiple novel modes of action have shown scientific and commercial traction at the proof of concept level in recent years. For example, autonomous visual detection of weeds combined with laser and electricide technologies is demonstrating positive field trial data. However, the low operating speeds required for such systems to achieve precision targeting massively limits its practicality. This is symptomatic of the wider, recurring constraints to disrupting the incumbent agrochemical market, with many technologies facing barries to scaling adoption with high costs, operational compatibility, and risks of evolutionary ‘escape’.
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: reimagining weed control to build a thriving agricultural sector that aligns with ecological and human health.
Our preliminary scoping of the area indicates high potential to create approaches that meet our desired outcome: weed control that is scalable, durable, and effective without off-target effects. Emerging technologies, spanning from RNAs to molecular glues, 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 AI and precision agriculture tools, mean that it is the ideal time to tackle these barriers.
Requirements
Essential Values
Essential experience (must-have)
Preferred experience (nice-to-have)
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: