ABOUT THE ROLE

Deep Science Ventures (DSV) is a science venture builder - we build new science start-ups and recruit impact-driven individuals with specific skill sets to become Founders.

THE CHALLENGE

Ancient, and remarkably versatile, steel is produced in volumes second only to concrete and aggregate globally. It makes up critical parts of our buildings, cars, ships, machinery, factories, bridges, appliances and more. Meanwhile, producing it from raw iron ore burns 1 billion tonnes of coal, and when including some additional natural gas and oil consumption too, this emits 3.5 billion tonnes of CO2 into our atmosphere each year. An equivalent sum of CO2 to all the exhaust fumes of every flight on Earth, four times over.

Bringing this CO2 emissions number to zero is essential for avoiding climate change. There are three prongs of attack here: One, turn off as many polluting plants as we can, in other words, reduce or substitute demand for steel. Two, change the facilities that already exist to be emitting less i.e. new fuels, or capturing emissions. Then, three, build new plants using novel technologies and replace the whole supply chain, fast.

While the first route would only allow for partial CO2 abatement of 0.8 Gt/yr a year, we could potentially produce zero emissions steel by fully electrifying the iron and steel making process via route three. Partial electrification is already possible and today as 25% of steel is produced via Electric Arc Furnaces. Yet, with current technologies direct emissions continue to be high because fossil carbon is still used for slag foaming, anode construction or rapid process heating. Next to that, indirect emissions have not been solved, as running continuous processes of steel making using intermittent renewable energy sources would depend on expensive energy storage. Electric ironmaking is facing significant challenges for example the hot direct reduced iron route is suffering from high cost, technical constraints of hydrogen storage and is limited to high quality ore while molten oxide electrolysis is suffers excessive anode consumption at scale.

OUR APPROACH

In an ideal future we would want to build a steel plant that is fully operated by intermittent renewable electricity and heat and whether steelmaking uses renewable carbon sources for alloying. Thus, to maximise the CO2 abatement impact by electrifying the steel industry we need to commercialise technologies around direct renewable heating, medium-temperature processes, alternative energy storage systems, and alternative carbon sources such as biochar and CO2 graphitisation. We also need to find ways to process low grade ores and find cheaper chemical reductants. We have some ideas, but it will ultimately be down to you to determine the best commercial and technical route forward!

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.

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.
• PhD or equivalent industry expertise in metallurgical engineering, material sciences, process design, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering or a relevant field
• We are especially interested in candidates with a good understanding or work experience in at least one of the following: metals processing technologies such as smelting of metals, electric arc furnaces, thermal or electrolysis processing of metal oxides
• Experience with the development of novel electrochemical and/or thermochemical cell and reactor design is a plus
• You have a broad knowledge base to draw upon and an 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.

Benefits

We are 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. We are deeply involved in each company, providing:

Exploration: Deconstruct the ‘Zero emission steel’ opportunity area and identify possible approaches for venture spin-out.

We offer mentorship and guidance through weekly deep dive work sessions, access to our opportunity insights and knowledge base, access to a global network of experts, access to a community of other science Founders working on launching their own companies, and a curated collection of resources and proprietary tools.

Building: Build a team of co-founders and advisors around the most promising approach(es).

We offer Co-Founder(s) sourcing and assessment via our proprietary tools, advisory board sourcing, advice on technical and commercial investment milestones, co-development of technical roadmap and go to market strategy, investment readiness pre-launch with further focus on technical and commercial proof, customer development support.

Accelerating: Secure capital and focus on technical proof-of-concept development with the support from our industry partners.

We offer £250k pre-seed investment, access to our industry network, advice on follow-on fundraising strategy, including introductions to seed investors and potential customers from our global network, support with term sheet negotiation, supporting grant applications to leverage further non-dilutive funding and value uplift and access to a community of seasoned science founders in our portfolio.

Additionally, we provide a monthly stipend of £4,166 so that you’ll have guaranteed income before you’re able to secure the pre-seed investment. In other words, we pay you to start your own company. We also cover pre-investment expenses that are crucial for the development of the idea/project.