Positron Ventures

📢 Come and join us! 🔬 Positron is not an ordinary early-stage science investor. We are looking to expand our team with someone who fits our unusual approach. More info here: https://lnkd.in/eBQb47f2

Joseph and I started Positron Ventures out of a passion for science, early-stage company building, and solutions to big problems. But we had nothing more than an idea. To the extent we can yet claim any success at Positron, it is thanks to the exceptional people we have brought on board. One person in particular embodies everything we stand for at Positron. That is Anna-Lena Schindl. When we first met Anna-Lena she was working at a synbio startup. We got particularly excited about her background in doing exactly what we want to do: helping scientist-entrepreneurs build companies. Anna-Lena has a unique insight into how we can meaningfully work towards our mission to help scientist-entrepreneurs bring breakthrough innovations to market. For instance, by building up a network of amazing scouts across Europe, or by writing about how scientists can become entrepreneurs. She has a unique talent for connecting with those on that journey and can build deep relationships with founders before and after we invest. When it comes to assessing science, teams, and ideas, she somehow quickly builds up intuition about whether something is in our scope or not. Whenever we get excited about something new, our first reaction is, ‘What would Anna-Lena say?’ Anna Lena has helped shape Positron into what it is today, and we feel lucky to have her as part of the team. We are celebrating her contributions to Positron with her new job title of Principal - and we look forward to making many more ‘bold bets on science’ together.

🌎 Very much looking forward to The Drop in Malmö next week! Our team member, Julia, will be in Malmö on September 15-17. She’s excited to connect with others in the climate and deep tech community to discuss scientific breakthroughs in climate tech. 📣 If you’re attending and share our passion for harnessing technology to create a sustainable future, we’d love to connect!

🚀  Come join Birte, Fabian and others - learn about our scout network and become part of it! ❗48 hours left to apply for our scout network

🌟 Join Our Mission to Transform Science into Startups! 5 days left ⏳ 🔍 Are you a Master, PhD, or PostDoc student with a passion for scientific innovation? Become a Scout and help us uncover the brightest minds in European academia! 🤝 Collaborate with a community of like-minded individuals and gain insights into the venture capital world. 👉 Apply here: https://lnkd.in/dWmgkCqg

🧠 Meet Birte Toussaint and Fabian Mulder - two of our inaugural scouts! Both neuro/bio nerds with a love for science entrepreneurship! 🔎 Positron has scouts? Yes! Students, researchers, founders across Europe and just as excited about starting companies around the biggest science breakthroughs as we are. (And we are looking for new ones to join - see the comments) 🎉 Get to know the first two of our scouts today (we'll introduce them all to you in the future): Birte - Hailing from South Africa, Birte is currently a postdoc at ETH Zurich. Here she follows her passion at the intersection of neuroscience, psychiatry and computer science - after a PhD developing diagnostic tools in computational psychiatry, she is now exploring possible startup routes of her own. Fabian - A citizen of Europe, born in the Netherlands - currently residing in Heidelberg and pursuing a Master’s in Molecular Biosciences. Fabian is highly involved in several biotech startup development initiatives and life science entrepreneurship communities such as iGEM Startups. He has a special interest in neurotech, personalised medicine and organ printing technologies. https://lnkd.in/gUtfD8A5

🔬 Passionate About Science and Startups? 👩🎓👨🎓 Master, PhD, and PostDoc students, we need your expertise! Join us as Scouts to help find and support the most promising scientific entrepreneurs in Europe. 🌐 Expand your professional network, gain hands-on experience in venture funding, and be at the forefront of scientific innovation. 🔗 Apply now! Details in the comments.

🚀 We are excited to be at HackSummit in Lausanne this week! 🌱 At Positron Ventures, we help and fund Europe-based scientist-entrepreneurs who are pursuing moonshots for (planetary) health. 🔍 Are you a scientist and plan to spin out your research into a startup? Are you aiming for a moonshot? 📝 If you are also there and want to meet up, feel free to send a message to Julia Wagner!

⚡️ We are wasting a substantial part of electricity generated by wind and solar, simply because supply and demand do not fully align. 🔋 A tremendous amount of long duration energy storage capacity is needed to bridge the gap. And it needs to be dirt cheap. 🌍 Ore Energy's batteries - made from just iron, water and air - might be the missing piece of the renewable energy puzzle. I feel honoured to contribute with Positron Ventures. 👇 Here is some more context on why we invested: https://lnkd.in/eQbTt_fR

📢 Funding announcement 📢 We first met Aytac Yilmaz in 2022, before he had set up a company to bring the scientific breakthrough from his PhD to market. Partnering with him from day one, and humbly contributing to his journey from scientist to entrepreneur is what we love to do at Positron. What the Ore Energy team has achieved so far is phenomenal. And it is great to finally reveal what they are working on!