About the Program

The Founder in Residence (FiR) program is designed to bring exceptional entrepreneurial talent into the Tin Alley Ventures Pty Ltd ecosystem to explore, validate, and launch deep-tech companies emerging from the University of Melbourne and its partner institutes. This role is for a proven builder who can move fluidly between founder, operator, and venture partner — someone who thrives at zero-to-one, navigates ambiguity with creativity and discipline, and has the resilience to take a research insight and turn it into a scalable business.

What You’ll Do

·         Identify and shape high potential research from academics, research labs, and technology transfer pipelines into investable opportunities.

·         Engage with industry partners, and potential customers to define the product, the market and development strategy.

·         Assemble founding teams by attracting technical, commercial, and operational talent, including co-founders and early hires.

·         Work alongside Tin Alley Ventures’ investment team, syndicate partners and university stakeholders to spin out investable opportunities into companies.

·         Roll up your sleeves to bring the company to life — from validating hypotheses to building MVPs to negotiating partnerships.

·         Join the spinout you’ve built as the CEO or C-level executive.

What We’re Looking For

·         Bachelor's degree required.

·         1-3 years' experience in deep tech sector.

·         An entrepreneurial spirit and deep desire to build something impactful. Ideally, you’ve built something from scratch, but we value intrapreneurs and builders in all forms.

·         Ability to rapidly understand complex scientific or technical concepts and translate them into commercial opportunities.

·         You operate with urgency, resourcefulness, and resilience, even in ambiguous conditions.

·         You can leverage relationships across investors, researchers, industry, and talent networks to accelerate progress.

·         Experience in market sizing, business model design, and capital strategy.

·         You inspire trust, galvanise teams, and work well across disciplines.

·         You have some sketches about what the world needs, or what you might build that is deeply aligned with your mission here on Earth.

Nice to Have

·         Experience in deep tech sectors such as biotech, advanced materials, AI/ML, robotics, energy, or climate tech.

·         You’ve built and scaled a startup from scratch.

·         Familiarity with university technology transfer or IP commercialisation processes.

·         Prior exposure to venture capital, whether as a founder raising funds or working at a fund or incubator.

Visa sponsorship available