Commercial Advisor / Co-founder in Green Steel Venture (open application)

This is an open application for expressions of interest to join DSV as a commercial Advisor or Co-Founder in Residence for an early stage Green Steel venture currently being developed at DSV. The Co-Founder in Residence role will be full-time, with a start date in mid Q1 2025. Commitments of the advisor role can be discussed during the interview process.

If you begin as an Advisor, there will be an opportunity to transition to a co-founder role within several months depending on early stage technology development progress. Alternatively, it will also be possible to remain as an Advisor if that better aligns with your goals and interests as well as the interests of the company. 

We are seeking applications from experienced industry or startup deep tech development professionals from anywhere in the world to work with us on this venture.

You’ll work closely with the DSV team and the current Founder in Residence for this area to spin-out a new company by the end of Q2 2025.

The Opportunity Area: Zero Emission Steel

Ancient and remarkably versatile, 2 billion tonnes of steel is manufactured a year, requiring some of humanity's most complex engineering. 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, emitting around 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.

Efforts to recycle steel using Electric Arc Furnaces will help reduce demand for primary (virgin) steel, yet they will be unable to reduce it to zero because (i) scrap supply currently outstrips steel demand, with a projected shortfall of 50% in 2050, (ii) impurity accumulation in scrap means electric arc furnaces are unable to reliably produce high-grade steel. To bridge this supply gap and dilute impurity contents therefore, green primary iron feedstocks are required, alongside recycled feedstocks, into the future.

Bringing the CO2 emissions from steel to zero is essential for avoiding climate change. To do this, we are working on a venture for novel primary ironmaking to produce high purity primary iron.

This opportunity is funded by the Iron Ores team of leading global mining company Anglo American, as part of the company's efforts to unlock and accelerate climate positive innovation through investment and industry collaborations. This opportunity is in particular aligned with Anglo American’s ambition to cut its Scope 3 emissions – which derive primarily from the use of its iron ore production in steelmaking – by 50% by 2040.

Our Approach

At DSV, we work backwards from the desired outcomes: a steel plant that is capable of producing net-zero primary iron or steel.

By generating an outcomes graph, we’ve identified key constraints in iron making (e.g. incompatibility of poor quality iron ores with emerging ironmaking technologies, plant infrastructure degradation, and high economic exposure to fluctuating hydrogen costs). Through ideation and consultation with external experts, we are approaching two main technologies that are practically scaleable pre 2050, solid-state reduction and low to mid-temperature electrolytic techniques that could be used to solve some of these challenges. 

The precise techstack requires refinement and external validation, while the techno economics are validated, the founding team is seeking individuals with commercial expertise in steel to advise or co-found.

What will the role look like for an advisor or co-founder

As a technical Advisor you will provide commercial and technical expertise to support customer validation and techno economic assessment for advancing novel steelmaking approaches, incl. (but not limited to):

• Input to techno economic analysis 
• Supporting on customer validation to ensure customer requirements are met by the novel solution
• Discussing potential commercial risks to success from your experience with the industry to date

As a Co-founder your role will go beyond techno-commercial alignment to include commercial strategy i.e.:

• Driving customer discovery, engaging with industrial stakeholders to build relations, and ensure solutions meet real-world needs and are scalable;
• Developing the technology roadmap and assessing readiness of various concepts from prototype to demonstration phase;
• Engaging with and converting early-stage investors/VCs, ensuring the company is well-positioned for pre-seed to Series A milestones.

Requirements

Who Should Apply

Most suitable candidates will likely meet multiple of the following criteria:

• Industry-specific know-how, commercial knowledge (e.g. strategic partnerships, manufacturing, procurement etc.) and network within the steel industry and related industries;
• Broad knowledge in steelmaking technologies and processes;
• Experience in building and scaling a high-growth enterprise (leadership/c-suite roles).
• Experience in building and scaling new technologies from concept to demonstration;
• Experience in raising funds from early stage investors/VC;
• In-depth knowledge of state-of-the-art (SOTA) technologies and constraints in at least one of the following areas: metals processing technologies such as smelting of metals, electric arc furnaces, thermal or electrolysis processing of metal oxides, ore beneficiation and hydrometallurgy;
• (additional) Experience with the development of novel electrochemical and/or thermochemical cell and reactor design is a plus;
• (additional) PhD or equivalent industry R&D know-how focused on metallurgical engineering, material sciences, process design, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, or a relevant field;

Benefits

As a commercial co-founder with DSV, you will be part of 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. Here’s what we offer:

• Access to optimised, purpose-built, proprietary tools, resources, and processes to help create high-impact ventures from scratch.
• Opportunity area-specific know-how from our network of Partners and Advisors.
• Up to £250k in investment to incorporate the new venture and develop early proof-of-concept data.
• Guaranteed income of £4,166 per month paid as a consultancy fee until the company is launched and the pre-seed investment is secured.
• Majority equity stake in the new company for you and your co-founders.
• Continuous post-spinout support, including fundraising, commercial partnerships, recruitment, and team-building.
• Collaborative support from dozens of Founders currently at DSV across sectors.

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.