Nucleus Capital is a new venture capital firm supporting purpose-driven founders. We profoundly believe that entrepreneurial innovation is necessary to solve systemic challenges to planetary health.

We partner with entrepreneurs at the nucleus of their journey, investing at the Pre/Seed stage and are focussed on Synthetic & Computational Biology, Food- and Decarbonization Technology.

We are looking for an ambitious and talented individual to join the Nucleus core team as an Investment Associate or Principal (m/f/d). Non-scientific backgrounds will not be considered.

Location: For the first year, the location is Berlin, remote work is possible afterwards.

Type: Full-time.

Compensation: Competitive fixed compensation + above market standard participation in the firm’s success (carried interest).

Start date: Q3 2023.

Application form

🤩 Your responsibilities:

You will play a crucial part in our day to day operations and deal-life-cycle, working directly with our portfolio founders, advisors and the Nucleus core team:

Investment Management:

• Independently manage the investment process in close collaboration with our Partners from sourcing to closing of new deals.
• Source potential investments through proactive relationship building with founders, academic institutions, accelerators and fellow investors across Europe & North America.
• Conduct in-depth technical due diligence for investments in biotechnology startups in close collaboration with our network of industry and scientific experts.
• Actively support the firm’s investment thesis with research on scientific breakthroughs & markets to form new investment views and stay ahead of trends.

Portfolio support:

• Engage with our portfolio founders and executives on strategic projects such as: Product development, Production scale-up, Go-to-market, Scientific Recruiting, Fundraising etc. working closely with our Industry and Scientific Advisors.
• Navigate our firms network and identify the most important value add connections for individual portfolio companies.
• Opportunity to support portfolio companies on board level.

Above & beyond:

• Take ownership of our bio community, incl. events, networking and knowledge sharing.
• Represent Nucleus at industry events and build your own valuable network with ambitions to become a sought-after opinion leader.
• Contribute to building a world-class early-stage venture capital fund by taking on additional responsibility for various other initiatives.

🦹‍♀️ What it takes to be successful in this role:

• Hustle: Are you prepared to work both hard and smart? We are looking for purpose-led individuals who are comfortable working with a sense of urgency. This is not a role where you can afford to wait for opportunities and deals to present themselves – you will need to get your hands dirty (like all of us) and build your own extensive networks to source the best possible investment opportunities, corporate contacts and Limited Partners.
• Networking: Can you walk into a room, not knowing anyone, and easily make connections? This role requires excellent interpersonal skills, a proactive and self-motivated personality that actually enjoys meeting A LOT of people with different backgrounds and personalities. Your ability to source deal flow through your network will be the number one differentiator for making you a top-performing VC.
• Helicopter-ability: You will need to demonstrate extreme ownership and organizational abilities, allowing you to juggle many different work streams and stakeholders at the same time while keeping the quality of your work exceptionally high.
• Endless curiosity: By nature, this job will never get boring. Do you have the energy and curiosity to live up to its full potential? Your hunger to learn about new technologies, markets and scientific breakthroughs is your secret weapon in building a broad yet deep understanding of our target sectors.
• Business acumen: You should have the ability to look across sectors and derive market sizes, opportunities, and white spots. You will be often faced with the unique challenge of evaluating markets that don’t exist yet or are in their early days. You will still need to do an industry assessment of market size on the back of an envelope, based on solid logic.
• High degree of stamina: We see hundreds of companies per year. Could you meet 5-10 start-ups a day, and still enjoy your job? Regardless of whether it is your first or last pitch of the day, you need to stay focused and be able to differentiate between misleading ‘shiny objects’ and the true ‘diamonds in the rough’. Just because you have seen five bad pitches doesn’t mean the next one might not be a winner.

🤓 Qualifications:

• You obtained a PhD (big plus) or Masters degree from a leading university in Synthetic Biology, Biotechnology, Biology, Bioprocess Engineering or Biochemical Engineering. An additional business degree is a strong plus.
• For Principal: The ideal candidate brings significant startup or investing experience to the Cap Table, next to a strong network. Its clear to you that VC is your thing. This is a Partner-track position with a long-term career & growth opportunity.
• For Associate: Previous work experience in a fast-paced environment (e.g. venture backed startup, VC/PE, or top tier consulting) is a strong plus. This position comes with a clear career trajectory, but we understand if VC might not be your end game.
• You have outstanding analytical skills, a fun & pleasant personality, the desire to get s**t done and want to have an impact on our planet’s health and our joint future.
• Fluency in English (written/spoken) is a must; fluency in German is a plus.

♟ Application process:

This is a very crucial position to us. Hence we will take our time to get to know you better:

1. After filling in the **application form,** we will invite the top 20% of candidates for a crisp 30 min interview (video call). We’re interested in your motivation and background.
2. In case you pass the first interview, you will receive a short case study (90 mins). We will objectively benchmark your results with all other candidates and invite the best 10% for two in-person meetings (1 hour) with each Partner (can be on the same day).
3. Successful candidates will meet one of our scientific advisors ****who is going to challenge your technical subject matter expertise (45 mins video call).
4. Nucleus is built on a community DNA. Therefore, it’s important to us that you meet with one of our Portfolio Founders and a Venture Partner (30 mins each via video call).
5. Lastly, we will take the most promising candidates out for dinner and enjoy a great meal and hopefully enticing discussions before we make a final decision.

Nucleus is an equal opportunity employer that values diversity and encourages people of all ethnic origins, gender identities, sexual orientations, religions, socio-economic statuses, ages, and individuals of all abilities to apply.