Co-Founder in Residence, Zero Emission Steel

6 days ago


London, United Kingdom Deep Science Ventures Limited Full time

Join Us as a Founder in Climate

At DSV, we are always on the lookout for entrepreneurial-minded individuals with technical and commercial domain expertise to solve urgent unmet challenges through venture building. We are currently seeking passionate and driven individuals to join our Climate sector, focusing on achieving zero emission steel production.

You will join DSV’s venture creation programme as a Co-Founder in Residence and work closely with the DSV team, using our methodology, to spin-out a new company. During the programme, you’ll work on all aspects related to venture creation in this opportunity area, including working out the optimal approach to solve for the desired outcome, building 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: 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.

Bringing this CO2 emissions number to zero is essential for avoiding climate change. There are three methods of attack:

  1. Switch off as many polluting plants as we can, in other words, reduce or substitute demand for steel.
  2. Change facilities that already exist to become carbon neutral through fuels, or capturing emissions.
  3. Build new plants using novel technologies to create a new best-in-class technology.

The first route has limited potential and might be better solved by regulations. The second route suffers from difficulties in plant shutdown, high-volume carbon sourcing, and retrofit complexity. The third route of fully renewable steelmaking offers the most promise.

Partial electrification is already possible; 25% of steel is produced via Electric Arc Furnaces with many new technologies such as Hydrogen DRI, Molten Electrolysis and Alkaline Electrolysis undergoing development. Yet, with current technologies, direct emissions continue to be high because fossil carbon is still used for slag foaming, anode construction, or rapid process heating. Next to that, indirect emissions have not been solved, as running continuous processes of steel making using intermittent renewable energy sources would depend on expensive energy storage.

Electric ironmaking is facing significant challenges across the space, from energy storage for renewable power to sourcing high quality net-zero alternative carbon and utilising low-quality iron ores.

Our Approach

In an ideal future, we would want a steel plant that is fully compatible with intermittent renewable electricity and heat and ensure steelmaking uses fully-renewable carbon sources for alloying. Some of the options to do this are to commercialise and integrate renewable heating, medium-temperature processes, alternative energy storage systems, and alternative carbon sources such as biochar and CO2 graphitisation. We also need to find ways to process low grade ores and find cheaper chemical reductants.

Who Should Apply

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

  • PhD or equivalent industry R&D know-how focused on metallurgical engineering, material sciences, process design, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, or a relevant field;
  • 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;
  • Experience with the development of novel electrochemical and/or thermochemical cell and reactor design is a plus;
  • Broad knowledge in steelmaking technologies and processes;
  • Industry-specific know-how, commercial knowledge (e.g. strategic partnerships, manufacturing, procurement etc.) and network within the steel industry and related sectors;
  • Experience in building and scaling new technologies from concept to demonstration;
  • Experience in raising funds from early stage investors/VC;
  • Experience in building and scaling a high-growth enterprise (leadership/c-suite roles);

Our Offer

By joining 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.

This opportunity is funded by the Decarbonisation Ventures 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.

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.

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