Co-Founder in Residence, Avoid water scarcity in industry (Open Application)

ABOUT THE ROLE

This is an open application for expressions of interest. Active recruitment for the role will begin later in the 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 and our corporate partner, 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

Water represents a key input for industry, whether for production purposes or as an ingredient. Today it represents up to 24% of total annual water demand, second to Agriculture. With growing population and economic activities the demand for water is increasing also in industry while water availability is strained by pollution and climate change. With increasing extreme weather events, reliable water supply to industry is put at risk. For example two-thirds of businesses experience substantial risk in direct operations or in their value chain related to water scarcity on a physical, regulatory, reputational or stakeholder level. 

Today the majority of water is supplied via surface or groundwater, but in areas like Southern Europe, India and Central America these sources no longer represent a reliable water source throughout the whole year. Next to that, delivery of potable water is inhibited by high leakage rates and the majority of wastewater remains untreated on a global level. 

Industrial players have spent a lot of effort to reduce their water consumption and new technologies to desalinate seawater or sourcing water from the atmosphere have been developed. Yet for industry to meet the reliable supply of millions of litres of high quality water per day at low cost is still difficult. For example, the latest atmospheric water capture technologies are in the range of thousands of litres per day and desalination represents its own environmental burden by generating large amounts of brine. Sourcing water from wastewater or runoff represent public constraints and some contaminants are difficult to remove economically. Transporting water over long distances e.g. from water rich to water scarce regions represent major infrastructure and cost challenges.

OUR APPROACH

Help us to find the best solution to the overarching question: How can we supply water at scale, at affordable costs and without environmental damage?

Starting from established technologies, it may be possible to restore the reliability of groundwater and reservoirs by using directed precipitation capture or minimizing/monitoring evaporation. Separately, in some areas where brine has infiltrated groundwater, new inland-desalination processes could be adopted. Furthermore, solutions to address runoff - one of the largest and under-managed potential water sources in developing countries - using new technologies such as permeable concrete or rapid groundwater recharge could be deployed. New methods for extracting moisture from air have also made headway - including direct water from air harvesting and artificial cloud seeding. Together we will determine the optimal solution to this problem!

Requirements

• We are looking for an entrepreneurial and urgently motivated person who has a strong drive to solve some of the world's most pressing environmental challenges.
• You must have a PhD or an equivalent high-level of technological expertise in  industrial water management, hydrology, environmental studies, or a relevant field
• Especially interested in candidates with a good understanding of, or who have previously worked in the industry in at least one of the following: thermodynamics, atmospheric dynamics, geochemistry, material science
• You have a broad knowledge base to draw upon and a passion in keeping up-to-date with the latest technologies
• You are a creative thinker, enjoy thinking about the exceptions to 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. 
• You may have previously worked in, or with corporates, and have a good understanding of how to successfully pilot and implement technology with large organisations.

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. 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.