Technical or Business Co-Founder | Cohort Autumn 2021 (Remote)

Build a startup that transforms the food system.

Do you have a scientific, technical or business background and want to be part of revolutionising the future of food? Join us as a commercial or technical founder to build a scalable high-impact startup that creates a better future for humans, animals and the planet.

Counterfactual Ventures is an all-in-one venture studio, incubator, VC fund, R&D institute, and talent sourcing firm led by an experienced team with backgrounds across Founder’s Factory, Intellectual Ventures, L’Oreal, HP, Food X, Entrepreneur First, NASA, and Cambridge. We believe that replacing factory farming with more humane, sustainable, equitable and nutritious alternatives is an increasingly urgent global need.

We work with institutional partners, research collaborators, and a deep network of leaders in the alternative protein industry to uncover the most important opportunities in the market. We design high-potential technical and commercial solutions to address these opportunities, and then together with co-founding teams, turn the most promising ones into profitable startups designed to revolutionise the global food system.

Through our programme:

• We’ll help you actualise your passions, skills, experience and personal mission by matching you with your dream startup concept from our studio
• We’ll help you build your ideal co-founding team from our vetted pool of world-class talent
• We’ll bring you into a collaborative process with our world-class venture studio team to turn a vetted company concept into your profitable high-impact startup.
• We’ll kickstart your journey with $300k of pre-seed funding, extensive incubation support, lifetime access to our network, and strong potential for follow-on funding.

How it works:

◆ Application

Our application process is designed to get a sense of your goals and determine your forecasted performance throughout the lifecycle of your emerging venture.  If your potential and commitment to the Counterfactual mission checks out, but we are unable to place you with a company for an upcoming cohort, you’ll be invited to collaborate with us in our cofounder talent pool.

◆ Formation

Healthy team dynamics and founder-idea fit are critical to a startup’s success. What we call the “Formation phase” is simply constructing strong founding teams that are exceptionally well-placed to solve the problem they are working on. We help shortlisted candidates match with their co-founder(s) with company concepts that emerge from the Venture Studio.

◆ Incubation

Following a successful formation phase, you and your co-founder(s) enter a six-month incubation programme designed to get you market and investment-ready. We incubate around 8 companies every six months, providing $300k in pre-seed investment, hands-on mentorship, essential turnkey services and tailored support for you and your team.

Why should you join?

1. Be a part of revolutionising the food system. We’d love to partner with you in launching a world-changing venture with scalable impact.
2. You don’t need a team or an idea to join. Come as you are — bring your passion, grit, and relevant skills — we’ll help with the rest.
3. Co-create your dream startup with our team. We help you actualise your drive, skills, experience and personal mission to build your dream startup project from our validated concepts.
4. Build with the best-in-class. Begin your journey with skilled guides. Our venture studio team, led by former directors from L’Oreal, Intellectual Ventures and Founders Forum will personally work with you on validating commercial and technical components of your venture.
5. Find your ideal cofounder within our vetted pool of exceptionally talented individuals, who are as driven and passionate as you about building a better future of food. We will help you form cofounding teams based on your strengths, personality, team work style and cultural indicators.
6. Accelerate your launch with our support. We offer six months of tailored incubation support, $300,000 pre-seed capital and an unparalleled network to get your startup market- and investment-ready.

We are looking for:

» Scientists and technologists with skill and experience that is applicable to food systems (cell agriculture, tissue engineering, synthetic biology, fermentation, biochemistry, food science, food engineering, agricultural engineering,  plant biology, chemical engineering, bioreactor engineering, processing plant design, operations research/industrial engineering, data science, AI/ML, etc)

» Entrepreneurs with experience in business, commercialisation, logistics, supply chain and/or operations.

We're accepting applications on an ongoing basis. However, if you want to be part of our first cohort starting Autumn 2021, apply by July 15th, 2021.

For more details and a video about this opportunity by our CEO, visit us at https://www.counterfactual.co