Co-Founding Chief Executive Officer

Overview

Company: A Cambridge Future Tech portfolio venture
Location: Remote - Must be willing to travel
Role (Part-Time / Full-Time): Full-Time
Application Deadline: Open

• Overview

  Cambridge Future Tech (CFT) builds deep tech companies around cutting-edge IP from UK universities and corporate research labs. Each venture starts from proven science and an academic co-founder who holds the IP and technical authority, and needs a commercial leader to turn it into customers, capital, and a scalable business.

  We are seeking a founding Chief Executive Officer to lead a CFT venture through its formative commercial stage, working in close partnership with CFT and the academic co-founder. This is a co-founding role, not a senior hire into an existing company: you join before the first raise, take on genuine founding risk, and become the venture’s primary commercial driver. It is best suited to someone who has operated at the frontier of the venture’s target industry and is ready to become a true owner and strategic architect of a high-potential venture.

  You will be directly supported by Cambridge Future Tech (CFT), a deep tech venture builder specialising in creating companies around cutting-edge IP, bringing in the best commercial talent to support technical founders. Our team of expert operators and analysts work alongside the incoming CEO to accelerate and de-risk the early stages of company building.

• Key responsibilities

  • Own company strategy, vision, and execution across commercial, product, technical, and operational functions.

  • Lead GTM strategy, drawing on direct customer relationships and deep sector knowledge to identify, open, and convert target accounts.

  • Own customer discovery and product direction: work directly with the technical team to validate product-market fit, shape the roadmap from prototype to deployable product, and build early traction through LOIs, paid pilots, MoUs, or licensing.

  • Build and manage strategic partnerships with industry partners, OEMs, channel partners, and research-led customers.

  • Drive fundraising across grants, strategic investment, and venture capital, with support from CFT, and articulate the company vision credibly to both technical and financial audiences.

  • Manage the academic co-founder relationship, the IP licensing process, and the ongoing university relationship.

  • Hire and develop the early commercial, technical, and operational team as the business scales beyond the founding stage.

• What success looks like in the first 12 months:

  • Company incorporated and IP licence or assignment agreed, with a strong working relationship with the academic co-founder.

  • A clear, evidence-backed go-to-market thesis built from customer discovery.

  • Early commercial traction: signed LOIs, MoUs, or paid pilots.

  • A pre-seed or seed round closed, typically alongside non-dilutive grant funding, with support from CFT.

  • First key hires made and an operating plan in place for the next stage.

• Skills & requirements

  • Engineering, hard-science, or life-science background (degree level or equivalent through practice), sufficient to engage credibly with technical partners, customers, and investors.

  • Demonstrable commercial leadership experience, including B2B or enterprise sales, partnership development, product management, IP licensing, or scaling a business unit with P&L ownership.

  • Proven ability to navigate complex B2B sales cycles and the commercial and regulatory environment of the target sector.

  • Comfort operating in a capital-constrained early-stage environment: making decisions with incomplete information, moving fast, and doing the work personally alongside directing others.

  • Track record of raising early-stage capital across at least one of: grants, strategic investment, or venture capital.

  • Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.

• The successful candidate will demonstrate at least two of the following:

  • Track record of raising early-stage capital in deep tech or a comparable sector.

  • Experience as a founder or early commercial hire at a venture in or adjacent to the target sector, ideally one that scaled or was acquired.

  • Direct domain fluency in the venture’s technology area, sufficient to engage credibly with engineers, scientists, or clinicians at target accounts.

  • Established connections across the target customer base, with both the breadth and depth to open and close meaningful commercial conversations.

  • Experience working with university spinouts, technology transfer offices, or academic founders.

• The Opportunity

  This is a chance to co-found a deep tech company built on proven research, with CFT’s team, investor network, and operating support behind you from day one. The position carries a meaningful founding equity stake, though candidates should expect flexibility around cash compensation prior to the completion of fundraising.

Stay Connected for Industry-Defining Roles

If none of our current ventures aligns with your expertise, but you’re interested in founding a deep tech venture, we still want to hear from you. Get in touch with us at kelsey@camfuturetech.com, and we will add you to our CXO bench so we can reach out with future opportunities tailored to your expertise.