ABOUT THE ROLE

At DSV, we are 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 Founder in Residence and work closely with the DSV team to spin out a new company. During the programme, you will work on all aspects of the venture creation process. It will involve scoping the idea, hiring 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 OPPORTUNITY AREA

Have you ever caught yourself standing in your local supermarket, checking the labels for the origin of your fruits and vegetables? If you have, it means you are well aware that a large share of our daily goods are imported and often transported over very long distances. This not only applies to food but many other products ranging from raw materials to high-tech devices. Global trade routes are the arteries of our economies and enable our societies to thrive. The downside of it: transportation of goods is a major driver for carbon emissions, with international shipping alone accounting for about 1.85% of global CO2 emissions.

Abating GHG emissions from the shipping industry is hard. The most promising pathway discussed so far focuses on alternative fuels, primarily methanol and ammonia. These fuels have the advantage of relatively high energy densities and limited retrofitting requirements. Yet, high fuel production costs, fuel availability, lower energy efficiencies, and security concerns are challenging their deployment. On the other hand, full electrification is limited by the energy densities of today's batteries. Hence, electrification is only considered useful for short (feeder) routes, coast liners, or inland waterways. And even then, new charging infrastructure and overhauled propulsion systems are required. In short, there is no one-fit-all solution that is cost-competitive and easily implementable within a short time.

OUR APPROACH

Even if full electrification of ships is not a possible solution yet, partial electrification and hybridisation seem promising as an immediate emission reduction measure. Hybridisation combines the best of both worlds and can pave the way for full electrification. We see the opportunity to introduce electricity as ships are integrated into a broader, global trade system and not only transport goods, but also ensure the integrity of perishable items. Together with you, we want to focus on containerised shipping and explore business opportunities that will solve the challenges of sufficient (electric) shipping range, limited recharging times, reduced payload from added battery weight, added cost due to charging or changed vehicle usage pattern, safety concerns for operating batteries at sea, retrofitting cost of existing powertrains, and limited scaling through green corridors.

Requirements

• We are looking for an entrepreneurial and urgently motivated person with a strong drive to solve some of the world's most pressing environmental challenges.
• PhD or equivalent industry expertise in electrical engineering, naval engineering, mechanical engineering or relevant field.
• You demonstrate excellent first-principle thinking to identify and challenge existing constraints and show creative thinking to overcome them.
• We are keen on candidates with a good understanding of energy flows within a ship and knowledge of various system designs to provide propulsion and auxiliary loads for e.g. pumps, steering, and refrigeration.
• You have a broad understanding of battery chemistries and their causality on performance and safety.
• You have a good understanding or work experience in designing battery management and control systems to safeguard battery functionality, safety, and integrability with external charge points.
• It helps if you are familiar with the concept of refrigeration cycles used in refrigerated containers and have an understanding of port and warehouse logistics (drayage and container handling routines).
• You have a strong desire to build a company and ideally have built projects and teams in the past. You are an excellent communicator and work well in a team.

Benefits

OUR OFFER

By joining DSV, you’ll be joining a team of operators who have founded companies and led the 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.