Founder and CEO Industrial Shield
Founders Factory is a global venture studio and accelerator that builds and funds startups alongside exceptional entrepreneurs and the world's leading corporations. It provides capital, operational support from a 60+ person team of operators, and access to a coalition of corporate partners, focusing on sectors like Fintech, Health, Industrials, and Deep Tech.
About Founders Factory
Founders Factory backs visionary founders with capital, dedicated support from a team of 60+ operators, and unrivalled access to a coalition of industry-leading corporate partners. It operates a Venture Studio (co-founding new companies with the backing of its team and partners) and an Accelerator (helping startups raise capital and grow in pre-seed and seed stage investment programs). Its platform spans Capital (funding startups at idea, pre-seed and seed stages), Operational Support (co-founder level support to help find product-market fit, build companies, and raise rounds), Corporate Partners (access to distribution, market intelligence, commercial partnerships and follow-on capital), and Community & Network (operating at the centre of Europe's tech ecosystem with a global community of founders, investors and corporate innovators). The company runs multiple sector-specific accelerator programs globally (e.g. Northwestern Medicine Healthcare Accelerator, Aviva Fintech Accelerator, Rio Tinto Mining Tech Accelerator, MSWA MS & Neurological Care Accelerator, HSBC Industrial Innovator Programme, Blue Action Accelerator) and has built a portfolio of 450+ startups across Fintech, Health, Deep Tech, Climate, Mining Tech, AI, Media, and other sectors, with notable exits including Monolith, Landvault, Fluidstack, Flourish, Feedr, and Honest Health.
Skills
About the Role
You will turn an industrial-safety thesis into a scalable business. You will define the initial mining market and buyer strategy, develop a three-sensor wearable device and dashboard, secure and deliver an initial paid pilot, establish the subscription model, use regulatory trends to create urgency, hire an initial team, raise capital, and position the venture as a category leader.
Requirements
- Experience as a founder or senior operator building a hardware and software or IoT product from zero to one
- Familiarity with mining or heavy-industry health and safety, or enterprise construction
- Ability to sell preventative products to CFOs or health and safety directors and convert pilots into multi-year per-head contracts
- Ability to reason about sensors, edge computing, and device economics
- Ability to operate amid ambiguity and make decisions with incomplete data
- Credibility with industrial buyers and venture investors
- Willingness to be based in the United Kingdom or Australia
Responsibilities
- Define the initial mining geography, buyer, and procurement channel
- Develop the three-in-one wearable clip and dashboard into a pilot-ready product
- Convert introductions into a paid pilot with a mining or industrial operator
- Establish and test the per-worker subscription model, insurer co-funding, and partner-led distribution
- Use dust and heat regulation to create procurement urgency
- Hire the initial team, raise capital, and establish the venture as a category leader
Benefits
- €275k of spin-out capital
- Studio budget
- Hands-on support across product, growth, fundraising, AI and machine learning, design, legal, and hiring
- Full-time venture builder support for the MVP
- Six months of operational support post-launch
- Introductions to investors and corporate partners
- A vetted concept and domain insight