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Entrepreneurs First

Senior Associate - Deep Tech

London · On-site
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About this role

In 2027, Entrepreneurs First will be launching a cohort specifically targeting founders who want to work on frontier technologies. As a result, we are looking for a Senior Associate to join the team that will identify these outlier individuals that will build these companies, then make sure they reach their potential. You find them then help them build a moonshot.

You will learn how ideas become reality, have day-to-day exposure to world-class founders, and directly influence how we deploy millions of dollars every year into founders and teams in London.

We’re creating a whole new category in venture - you can be a pioneer.
You have likely already worked in deep tech as a founder, investor or startup operator. You likely have 4-8 years experience post-university and are keen to learn how to build your craft as a Talent Investor. We expect that our Senior Associates will become Principals in 18-24 months of joining us.

1. You are intellectually curious: Talent Investors have a deep and persistent desire to increase their knowledge of the world. They seek out the foundational ideas behind a concept or belief system. They often have multiple interests and hobbies, some of which may be quite obscure. They’re constantly updating their knowledge and beliefs through self-directed learning.

2. You are driven: Talent Investors are innately driven to achieve ambitious goals. They “run through walls” and find creative ways to achieve their desired outcomes. They are restless in their pursuit of excellence, and won’t take no for an answer.

3. You are a network builder: Talent Investors enjoy building, and immersing themselves within, networks of exceptional people. They can build meaningful relationships with exceptional people; both at peer-level, and with individuals more senior to themselves. They enjoy making intra- and inter-network connections.

4. You are a discerning judge of others: Talent Investors hold high expectations for themselves and expect the same of others. They are able to balance optimism and realism when they evaluate others. They are able to believe and see possibility in individuals where their potential may not be obvious to others.

5. You deeply understand frontier technologies: Talent Investors are fascinated by technology’s potential for impact, particularly through early stage company creation. For this specific role, we expect the right candidate will have developed a deep expertise within one or more frontier technologies through either formal or informal learning.
  1. Develop and execute theses on where you can find exceptionally talented individuals early in their career. Where’s the next Homebrew Computer Club?
  2. Become a trusted advisor to those individuals - help them unlock their ambition and reach their potential, from advising on career decisions to supporting them in building companies and raising funds.
  3. Constantly improve your mental model of what these individuals look like.
  4. Build relationships with experts in a broad range of fields.
  5. Be a key influencer in deciding which founders and companies EF invests in.

Fundamentally, your job is to find exceptional people and support them to build exceptional companies. If you do this job well, you will become part of the origin story of the iconic companies of the future - some examples from our portfolio include:
  • Tractable - a computer vision unicorn, co-founded by Razvan and Alex, the latter joining EF immediately after completing his Computer Science Masters degree at Imperial.
  • Magic Pony Technology - an AI research company acquired by Twitter for $150m after just 18 months. Co-founders Rob and Zehan both studied at Imperial, but had never met - Rob was found by a Talent Investor as the first employee at Raspberry Pi.
  • Ochre Bio - an AI drug discovery company co-founded by Jack and Quin. Quin was contacted by a Talent Investor while he was building a treehouse in the jungles of Costa Rica, taking a break after starting his own biotech.
  • Many others - e.g. Gensyn (distributed compute), Callosum (intelligent inference orchestration), Open Cosmos (a satellite mission provider and microsatellite manufacturer)

Company at a glance

Entrepreneurs First invests in exceptional individuals to build startups from scratch. We bring together talented outliers to develop their most ambitious ideas and raise money from the world’s best investors.

Since pioneering Talent Investing in 2015, we’ve learned to recognize individuals with extraordinary futures before anyone else, embedding them in a community of ambitious peers and giving them the tools they need to succeed, fast. We back them before they have a company, a team, even before they have an idea, based purely on talent.

EF’s portfolio is now collectively valued at over $16B, and includes companies such as Aztec, Cleo, Magdrive, Neptune, Omnea, Opply, PolyAI, Tractable, and many more.

EF is backed by some of the world's leading founders and investors, including Founders Fund, Greylock, John Collison (founder – Stripe), Patrick Collison (founder – Stripe), Reid Hoffman (founder – LinkedIn), Eric Schmidt (former CEO - Google), Demis Hassabis (founder – Google DeepMind ), Taavet Hinrikus (founder – Wise), Matt Mullenweg (founder – WordPress), Charlie Songhurst (Board member – Meta), Christa Davies (Board member – Stripe), Lachy Groom (founder – Physical Intelligence), Aidan Gomez (founder – Cohere), Mati Staniszewski (founder – ElevenLabs), Danny Rimer (Partner - Index Ventures), Matt Cohler (former General Partner - Benchmark).

We exist to make great companies happen that otherwise wouldn’t.
For more information about Entrepreneurs First, visit www.joinef.com

We're hiring! Join our global team and experience firsthand the workings of a globally unique talent investor working with cutting edge entrepreneurs on world changing technologies: https://www.joinef.com/about/careers

Team Size51-200 employees
WorkspaceOn-site
IndustryVenture Capital and Private Equity Principals
Location
London, England, United Kingdom
Websitejoinef.com
LinkedInLinkedIn

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