At Octopus we’re transforming the industries we operate in and improving the lives of millions of people. We’ve built market-leading positions in a number of specialist sectors, including smaller company financing, renewable energy, healthcare and property finance. We employ over 500 people and manage more than £6 billion on behalf of more than 50,000 investors. Our products don’t just help real people solve real life problems, they also make a positive impact on the world around us.
The Octopus Group incorporates Octopus Energy, Octopus Healthcare, Octopus Investments, Octopus Property, Octopus Ventures and Octopus Labs. Our aim is to have an impact in everything we do, and to make a vital contribution to the UK economy by helping people, companies and institutions generate wealth. And we’re always on the look-out for smart, talented people who share our values.
Octopus Ventures is a London and New York based venture capital firm, focused on backing unusually talented entrepreneurs. We have been fortunate enough to work with the founding teams of over 60 companies, including Conversocial, graze.com, LoveFiLM, Property Partner, Secret Escapes, Sofar Sounds, SwiftKey, Swoon Editions, Uniplaces, tails.com, Zoopla Property Group and Zynstra.
We can invest from £250,000 to £25 million in a first round of funding and will look to follow in subsequent rounds. We are proud to be known as one of the most entrepreneur friendly investors in Europe. A significant part of our portfolio consists of referrals from teams we have already invested in or serial entrepreneurs who we have previously backed. Octopus Ventures is part of the Octopus group, one of the UK’s fastest growing investment management companies with more than £6 billion of assets under management.
https://www.octopusventures.com/
About the role
We are super excited to announce that we are recruiting three new analysts at Octopus Ventures. Analysts at Octopus Ventures are part of the investment team and work primarily on deal origination; identifying, sourcing and building relationships with the best start ups in the European ecosystem. They gain exposure to our large portfolio of early stage and growth companies, as well as deep insight into our investment decision process.
In addition to focussing on deal origination, each Analyst is paired with one of the directors in the team who will be responsible for their training.
The Analyst role is structured as a 2-year rotational program, working with different members of the team and gathering exposure to opportunities across our range of investment areas.
Responsibilities
- Work directly within the investment team to source and evaluate deals.
- Build expertise in themes of interest (e.g. future of money, future of industry, future of healthcare and future of commerce)
- Interact with portfolio companies
- Represent the firm at industry events
- Be point person for our relationship with a range of acclerators/incubators
Qualifications
We are looking for analysts who share our love of technology and working with founders from the very start of their journey. More than any particular background, we look for candidates who are fiercely smart, intellectually curious, have strong analytical and communication skills and thrive off new stuff.
How do you apply?
Our process starts with having candidates send us a copy of their CV along with answers to three questions below (which can be emailed to ktaylor@octopusinvestments.com).
- Why are you interested in the analyst role? (70 words)
- How do you see the future of the mobile phone? (500 words)
- Suggest three early stage European tech companies that Octopus should consider and explain why (140 characters each)
From the initial submissions we will select a smaller group to complete a video assessment where we explore how candidates think. From this pool we further select a group to attend our offices for an interactive group assessment day. Finally, the best candidates will have a series of 1-2-1 meetings with senior Ventures team members before an offer is made. We expect the process to be complete and offers to be made by the end of March.
