VP, Business Development

Substrate is building and operating a network of fully autonomous wet laboratories. We are the critical infrastructure layer for AI-driven biological discovery: cloud-based data production facilities, tightly integrated with AI foundation models, that make high-quality experimental biology as accessible as compute.

We are a small team, four co-founders and a founding hire class now building out, with venture funding and government grants, opening our first node in London and a second node in San Francisco in parallel. The work is hard and the timeline is compressed. We have two scientific verticals live (protein characterisation and functional genomics), a software platform that connects API calls to automated assay execution, and a commercial pipeline that spans foundation model labs, AI biotechs, pharmaceutical companies, and publicly funded research organisations. We are growing to roughly thirty people by early 2027.

Most senior BD roles in AI and biotech sit inside companies that have already established their category, their pricing, and at least a partial deal template. The work is to execute a known commercial motion against a known buyer profile. This is not that. Substrate is creating a new category of scientific infrastructure in real time. The buyer is working out what they need at the same time as you are working out how to sell it to them. That requires a very different commercial orientation: one that is as much about helping customers think through a new operating model as it is about moving them through a pipeline.

The dual-geography dimension is also unusual. Substrate is building in London and San Francisco in parallel, not sequentially, and the commercial function needs to be effective in both. The London ecosystem (proximity to the UK AI-biology cluster, foundation model organisations, European pharma) and the SF ecosystem (frontier AI labs, Bay Area biotech, the US institutional research base) are different in composition and commercial culture.

The pattern we are looking for is senior commercial experience in AI, biology, and the intersection of both, at a venture-backed company or a technology-intensive organisation where you were selling something novel. You will have a network that includes scientific and commercial decision-makers at AI labs, biotechs, or pharmaceutical companies. You will know how to move a deal from an introduction to a technical conversation to a signed agreement, and you will be comfortable doing that in a context where neither the product nor the pricing nor the customer budget line is yet fully established.

You are technically comfortable. You do not need to be a scientist, but you need to be able to hold a substantive conversation with one. Substrate's customers include researchers and data scientists making architectural decisions about how to integrate external lab infrastructure into their development pipelines, and the BD conversation is often partly a scoping and technical specification conversation. You will be working closely with Anna, co-founder and lead for partnerships and go-to-market, and with the broader founding team. The commercial function does not sit at arm's length from the product or the science; it sits at the centre of how Substrate learns what it needs to build.

We are looking for someone who is energised by the open-ended nature of what this role requires. The playbook does not exist yet. You will write it.

Compensation is competitive against London and San Francisco market rates for a senior commercial hire at a venture-backed company, calibrated to the seniority and scope of this role. Equity is meaningful, on the standard four-year vesting schedule with a one-year cliff. We are happy to discuss the structure and philosophy in more detail with shortlisted candidates.

We sponsor visas for exceptional candidates at both the London and San Francisco locations.

Apply via Ashby. Include a short message describing who you are, why this role makes sense for you now, and what you think the hardest part of it will be is more useful to us than a cover letter.

We will move fast.

If you are not certain you are a fit, send a note anyway. The role is new and the framing will evolve; we would rather have a conversation with the right person and refine the role.

Substrate is an equal opportunity employer. We make hiring decisions on merit, scope-fit, and the strength of the working relationship we expect to build with each hire. Applications welcome from candidates of any background.

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