Co-founder in Residence, Next generation insecticides and pest control

Join us to build a new venture eliminating off-target toxicity from agrochemicals by scaling next generation insecticides and pest control.

We’re seeking an experienced entrepreneur to found and spin out a company with us focused on species-targeted, durable pest 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.

ABOUT DSV

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.

OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH THE GRANTHAM FOUNDATION

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".

ABOUT THE ROLE

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 insecticides.

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:

• The technical thesis for pest control that is scalable, durable and effective without off-target effects (neglect and technical tractability);
• Commercial neglect (IP strategy, differentiation, competition);
• Value proposition (market, value capture, techno-economics);
• Regulatory strategy & positioning;
• Fundraising strategy & pitching;
• Optimising company strategy for the most rapid and derisked path to Series A.

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.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Conventional insecticides - spanning from neonicotinoids to organochlorines - are a double-edged sword. They play a vital role in shielding crops from pests but can wreak havoc beyond their targets. Pollinators like bees and butterflies, vital to 75% of global food crops, are in free fall - some bee populations have declined by over 43% in high-insecticide regions due to lethal and sublethal exposures that impair navigation, immunity, and reproduction. Pest resistance to widely used small molecules is also a growing phenomenon, straining our available toolkit for safeguarding yields. This threatens both global food security and biodiversity. Beyond ecosystems, these chemicals can also cause acute intoxication, cancer, neurodegeneration, infertility, and hormonal disruptions in humans, driven by oxidative stress, DNA damage, and systemic inflammation - a problem being increasingly recognised especially in exposed rural populations. The transferability of these insecticides - spreading through soil, water, and trophic chains - amplifies their devastation, making sustainable alternatives non-negotiable.

Improved insect controls have already shown scientific and commercial traction at the proof of concept level. For example, semiochemical approaches have shown commercial success in disrupting pest mating patterns, while novel biological modes of action such as peptides illustrate the scope to achieve species-specific pesticidal targeting. However, the ability of novel modes of action to disrupt the incumbent agrochemical market remains relatively limited. Among the most important constraints in scaling adoption are high costs, coverage limitations, delivery efficacy, and risks of evolutionary ‘escape’. For example, the effective dose required for RNA-based controls remain an order of magnitude away from small molecules, while Bt crops - arguably the most prominent precision insecticide technology to date - have demonstrated a decline in efficacy after multiple growth seasons due to evolved resistance.

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 pest control to build a thriving agricultural sector that aligns with ecological and human health.

Our preliminary scoping of the area indicates high potential to develop approaches that meet our desired outcome: pest control that is scalable, durable, and effective without off-target effects. Emerging technologies, from crop-based RNAi and antiviral strategies through to endophytic microbial biocontrols, 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

WHO SHOULD APPLY

Essential Values

• You are highly motivated by unsolved challenges in insect pest control, and driven to challenge the status quo in agrochemicals.
• You are impact driven, take the initiative, make things happen, and think from a first principles perspective to figure out what’s really needed.
• You have clear entrepreneurial spirit and mindset, demonstrated through impactful innovation, and an ability to work in ambiguous, unstructured but fast-paced, demanding and pressurised environments.
• Collaborative nature, with the ability to work effectively in cross-functional teams.

Essential experience (must-have)

• Previous Founder experience.
• Previous C-suite experience.
• Previous fundraising experience (from VCs).
• Commercial & BD expertise (licensing, partnering, collaborations).
• Strong track record of building and leading successful teams.

Preferred experience (nice-to-have)

• Core science depth (PhD or equivalent industry R&D know-how) in genomics, molecular biology, entomology, plant pathology, virology (or similar), with breadth across technological areas relevant for next generation pest control such as:
• Biological modes of action (e.g. RNA design, stability, formulation/delivery);
• Behavioural and life cycle manipulations (e.g. semiochemicals biosynthesis/bioprocess scale-up, deployment/m