ABOUT THE ROLE

You will join Harry Macpherson and Aurélie Gonzalez as the first employee and Head of Engineering to build a venture targeting the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere to mitigate climate change. Depending on your availability you may join the venture prior to spinout from DSV or soon after. See ‘About the venture’ below for more details on the venture we’re building.

ABOUT HARRY

At DSV, Harry has been developing and de-risking a new process for the direct air capture of CO2. Before DSV, he developed technologies in CO2 capture and utilisation, leading the CO2 electrolysis work-package of the Horizon Europe EcoFuel project. He has also invented electrochemical methods for recycling lithium ion batteries in the Innovate UK CALIBRE project. He holds an MEng in Materials Science from the University of Oxford.

ABOUT AURÉLIE

Aurélie has recently joined Harry as co-founder to lead commercial and operations. Before DSV, she worked for 10 years in the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate industrial sectors and carbon removal for engineering companies and start-ups. She is a second-time climate entrepreneur and holds an MEng in Energy and Process Engineering from Ecole Centrale, Paris.

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.

ABOUT THE VENTURE

It is now too late to avoid dangerous climate change by merely cutting greenhouse gas emissions to zero. In the coming decades we need to remove several billions of tonnes of CO2 from the air. Direct air capture (DAC) offers a promising path to negative emissions, but is currently constrained by its present resource intensity. What if we could develop a DAC process that combined intrinsically low requirements for energy, water and land with a rapid capture rate and scalable design?

Today’s lowest energy DAC processes are semi-passive by nature and therefore slow. Several varieties of active process achieve high capture rates, but consume too much energy. Others achieve low energy consumption and fast capture rates, but only by integrating with unscalable sources of waste heat. But what if there was a way to actively transfer heat from scalable sources to capture CO2 at high energy efficiency and rate? That is what our venture will achieve.

Requirements

We are looking for a skilled and experienced chemical engineer who is urgently motivated to fight climate change by helping build a direct air capture company:

• Experience in chemical (process) engineering is a must, especially experience bringing a technology from the lab to pilot or industrial scale. Ideally, you’ll have experience working with external engineering contractors;
• Experience working in a start-up would be nice to have, as would a good grasp of techno-economic and life cycle analysis and process modelling/simulation (i.e. Aspen);
• Overall, we are looking for a hands-on process builder who is creative, fast and a leader in working practice for the environment, health and safety.

Benefits

Before spinout from DSV:

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 DSV team have founded or led a company at C-suite and 65% have a PhD. The DSV team dedicate several hours every week to each venture to provide tailored guidance and feedback covering every aspect of what it takes to successfully spinout a company, including a wealth of resources:

• 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.
• Sector specific know-how provided by network of Partners and Advisors;
• £250k investment governed by DSV's 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;
• Guaranteed income of £2,916 per month paid as a consultancy fee until the company is launched and the pre-seed investment is secured;

After spinout from DSV:

Competitive salary and share options package in the new venture. As first employee you'll have the opportunity to play a leading role in the company as it grows.