ABOUT THE ROLE

Deep Science Ventures (DSV) is a science venture builder - we build new science start-ups and recruit impact-driven individuals with specific skill sets to become Founders.

THE CHALLENGE

Rise and shine! It’s morning. Normally you would shower, but your local municipality has placed water restrictions due to a severe shortage. There hasn’t been any meaningful rain for over half a year. Forecasters claim that there hasn’t been anything like this in centuries, but this same claim is made almost every year now. Outside, the plants are shades of brown and yellow. Industry has literally dried up. A steady trickle of family and friends leave to seek a living elsewhere.

Increasingly, this fiction is playing itself out in the real world. Already today, billions of people face fresh water scarcity. In just the past few years, urban centers such as Cape Town and Chennai have just barely avoided zero water. Yet, by mid century, water demand is expected to grow as much as 55% - driven almost entirely by increases in domestic and industrial uses due to population growth and increasing standard of living. Where water scarcity enters the fold is in the asymmetry of use vs supply. By 2050, the majority of water scarcity will be driven by the growth and disproportionately high water use of urban centers - due to high population and industry density - which outstrip local supply.

As current projections stand, over 4 billion people will face some form of water scarcity by 2050 - the majority of which will reside in urban centers. Even if ambitious climate and population growth targets are adopted (under SSP1), only about 20% of water scarcity can be mitigated. Unfortunately, current water solutions are also not enough. ‘Traditional’ water projects such as reservoir construction and groundwater could in theory relieve water scarcity for 50% and 65% (respectively) of projected water-scarce urban centers. Yet both reservoirs and groundwater increasingly face challenges. Due to increasingly irregular precipitation and evaporation, reservoirs are no longer dependable water supply buffers. Furthermore, natural groundwater is often not replenished fast enough to prevent over extraction and is increasingly in short supply - 30% of the world’s groundwater already stressed. For the 60% of the world’s inland population living >100km from the world’s largest source of water (untreated seawater), the foremost challenge becomes access to sufficient quantities of water - treated or otherwise.

OUR APPROACH

Help us to find the best solution to the overarching question: How can we supply water at scale, at affordable costs and without environmental damage?

Starting from established technologies, it may be possible to restore the reliability of groundwater and reservoirs by using directed precipitation capture or minimizing/monitoring evaporation. Separately, In some areas where brine has infiltrated groundwater, new inland-desalination processes could be adopted. Furthermore, solutions to address runoff - one of the largest and under-managed potential water sources in developing countries - using new technologies such as permeable concrete or rapid groundwater recharge could be deployed. New methods for extracting moisture from air have also made headway - including direct water from air harvesting and artificial cloud seeding. It will be down to you to determine the optimal solution to this problem!

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.

Requirements

We are looking for an entrepreneurial and urgently motivated person who has a strong drive to solve some of the world's most pressing environmental challenges.
You must have a PhD or an equivalent high-level of technological expertise in hydrology, environmental studies, water management, or a relevant field
Especially interested in candidates with a good understanding or had worked in the industry in at least one of the following: thermodynamics, atmospheric dynamics, geochemistry, material science
You have a broad knowledge base to draw upon and an passion in keeping up-to-date with the latest technologies
You are a creative thinker, enjoy thinking about the exceptions to rule, and enjoy a good challenge.
You have a strong desire to build a company and ideally have built projects and teams in the past. You are a good communicator and work well in a team.

BENEFITS

We are 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 team have founded or led a company at C-suite and 65% have a PhD. We are deeply involved in each company, providing:

Exploration: Deconstruct the ‘Novel methods to increase local water supply to cover inland water deficit’ opportunity area and identify possible approaches for venture spin-out.

We offer mentorship and guidance through weekly deep dive work sessions, access to our opportunity insights and knowledge base, access to a global network of experts, access to a community of other science Founders working on launching their own companies, and a curated collection of resources and proprietary tools.

Building: Build a team of co-founders and advisors around the most promising approach(es).

We offer Co-Founder(s) sourcing and assessment via our proprietary tools, advisory board sourcing, advice on technical and commercial investment milestones, co-development of technical roadmap and go to market strategy, investment readiness pre-launch with further focus on technical and commercial proof, customer development support.

Accelerating: Secure capital and focus on technical proof-of-concept development with the support from our industry partners.

We offer £250k pre-seed investment, access to our industry network, advice on follow-on fundraising strategy, including introductions to seed investors and potential customers from our global network, support with term sheet negotiation, supporting grant applications to leverage further non-dilutive funding and value uplift and access to a community of seasoned science founders in our portfolio.

Additionally, we provide a monthly stipend of £2,916 so that you’ll have guaranteed income before you’re able to secure the pre-seed investment. In other words, we pay you to start your own company. We also cover pre-investment expenses that are crucial for the development of the idea/project.

Founder, Solving Inland Urban Water Scarcity