Founder Associate (to the Chief Business Officer) – Biocentis

Location: Milan, Italy (Biocentis HQ at OpenZone campus)

Type: Full-time

Start: ASAP

Experience: 1–2 years

About Biocentis

Biocentis is a life sciences company pioneering a completely new class of products: genetically modified insects designed to control harmful species that damage public health, agriculture, and biodiversity.

We are an Imperial College spin-out backed by leading climate and deep-tech investors . Our next years are pivotal: advancing our products into trials, securing partners, expanding our pipeline, building the foundations of a new product category.

The Role

We are now looking for a Founder Associate to join our Chief Business Officer (CBO) as a high-bandwidth generalist and strategic partner during this critical phase.

This is a rare opportunity to work side-by-side with a co-founder on the most important strategic, commercial, and operational questions Biocentis will face in the next years.

You will operate across strategy, market discovery and partnerships. Your mission is to help the CBO create clarity and momentum in areas where no playbook exists.

This role is ideal for someone early in their career (1–2 years), exceptionally smart, structured, curious, and excited by the idea of shaping a world-changing company.

What You’ll Work On

1. Market Validation & Partner Engagement

• Explore new markets across public health, agriculture, and biodiversity.
• Speak with distributors, manufacturers, growers, public health authorities, NGOs, government agencies.
• Understand what product characteristics drive adoption and commercial traction.
• Help validate go-to-market options, pricing, and business cases.

2. Pipeline Strategy

• Contribute to prioritising new insect species for our development pipeline.
• Collect and synthesise commercial, regulatory, and technical insights.
• Support research and negotiation of co-development agreements with partners.

3. Cross-Functional Strategic Support

• Coordinate strategic projects involving R&D, Regulatory, and Field Operations teams.
• Ensure that scientific and operational plans remain aligned with commercial reality.

4. Anything Else That Moves the Company Forward

• This is a founder-side role. New challenges will emerge constantly, and you will play a key part in solving them.

What We’re Looking For

• We are looking for someone who is:
• Exceptionally smart, fast-learning, and curious.
• Comfortable thinking from first principles in areas with no precedent.
• Able to structure ambiguity into hypotheses, analyses, and concrete actions.
• Strong with numbers.
• Confident communicating with senior stakeholders.
• Entrepreneurial, resourceful, and motivated by difficult problems.
• Proficient in English; it is our main working language.

Backgrounds that tend to do well in this role:

• Strategy consultants from top-tier firms.
• Analysts in VC/PE or generalist commercial roles.
• Ex-Founder Associates or early startup generalists.
• High-performers from corporate graduate programs.

But there is no “correct” CV. We care about how you think, not where you worked.

Why This Role Is Special

• Learn directly from a co-founder: high trust, high ownership, fast development.
• Exceptional team: our team has built billion-dollar companies, pioneered genome engineering and delivered some of the world's most exciting biotech products.
• Shape a new product category: we are building products that do not exist today.

How to Apply

Send your CV to federico.guelpa@biocentis.com with the subject line: “FOUNDER ASSOCIATE APPLICATION”