Venture Associate

Stony Brook University • Town of Brookhaven, NY

1d

About The Position

About the Center for Biotechnology:
The Center for Biotechnology supports biotech/techbio companies building category-defining businesses that leverage transformative technologies. Operating at the intersection of leading-edge science, the broader innovation ecosystem, and company-building—where infrastructure, decision pathways, and founder support systems are intentionally built—the Center works alongside founders, clinicians, and industry partners to move technologies from validated insight to scalable businesses with meaningful societal and economic impact.
Through founder engagement, rigorous technical diligence, venture development support, and ecosystem coordination, the Center reduces friction between venture development and venture growth by pairing disciplined execution with infrastructure support and access to the right expertise. The Center operates at the nexus of emerging innovations shaping the future of the bioeconomy and health.
Brief Description of Duties:
The Venture Associate works to source and select high-quality, founder-led companies, drive founder progress, and support execution across the Center for Biotechnology’s company-building activities.
This role is designed for someone with deep multidisciplinary technical and domain expertise—developed through rigorous training and hands-on experience—who has supported venture or startup decision-making as an analyst or equivalent responsibilities and is now ready to move from analysis to judgment. The role is well-suited for an individual who has not always had decision-making authority but seeks the opportunity to apply and develop judgment through real ownership, founder engagement, and accountability for outcomes.
The role is fast-paced and high-growth, with direct work alongside founders, EIRs, and the Leadership to translate deep technology into executable business models while continuously improving the processes and infrastructure that support those activities. In addition to sourcing and founder engagement, the Venture Associate helps coordinate founder-facing resources and builds dashboards to track company progress.
The Venture Associate is expected to think in systems—understanding how sourcing, founder engagement, resource deployment, data, and outcomes connect—while executing day-to-day work to support longer-term objectives.

Requirements

• PhD or MD/PhD in a quantitative life sciences or tech-bio discipline, such as computational chemistry, chemistry, computational biology, biophysics, biomedical engineering, bioinformatics, or a closely related field.
• Demonstrated experience conducting technology and/or company diligence, with responsibility for producing written analyses, evaluations, or recommendations used in decision-making (e.g., diligence memos, evaluation reports, go/no-go recommendations).
• Direct experience working with founders or early-stage company leadership, where execution milestones, timelines, or deliverables were involved.
• Proven ability to manage and execute multiple workstreams under deadlines in a fast-paced, outcome-driven environment.
• Hands-on AI fluency, with practical application of AI tools to improve research synthesis, pattern detection, decision support, workflow automation, or execution in a science- or technology-driven context.
• Proficiency in relational databases (i.e. Airtable), with hands-on experience building and maintaining relational bases, views, forms, dashboards, and/or automations used for operational tracking, execution management, or decision support.
• Two [2] years of full-time professional experience with demonstrated involvement in decisions, processes, or outcomes, and growing responsibility over time within a role or across roles, including: ● Conducting research and analysis to support due diligence workstreams. ● Participating in company evaluation and screening processes. ● Assisting with investment recommendations or presentations. ● Experience with at least 3-5 transactions or portfolio companies.

Nice To Haves

• Demonstrated cross-disciplinary technical depth across multiple scientific or technical domains, evidenced by publications, patents, platform development, or applied industry work.
• Prior experience advancing a company’s technology or business model, not solely advising (e.g., milestone definition, roadmap shaping, partnering or commercialization strategy).
• Experience designing or operating founder-facing infrastructure, programs, or systems that support company-building or entrepreneurial ecosystems.
• Exposure to or interaction with investors, venture capital, or strategic partners in a venture or commercialization context.
• Ability to design and maintain structured data and tracking systems to support pattern recognition, prioritization, and execution at scale.
• Experience applying formal decision frameworks for prioritization, tradeoff evaluation, and Three or more (3+) years of experience demonstrating sound judgment, discernment, and progressively greater responsibility for decisions, processes, and outcomes, such as: ● Evolution from executing due diligence tasks to owning complete workstreams or processes. ● Increased autonomy in company selection, screening, and opportunity development. ● Greater influence in funding or opportunity recommendations (from research support to formal recommendations to decision-making authority). ● Exposure to opportunities of increasing size, complexity, or strategic importance.

Responsibilities

• Founder Sourcing & Selection: ○ Proactively source founder-led companies across targeted technical domains using outbound exploration, referrals, and structured experimentation. ○ Independently test and compare sourcing approaches to identify where high-quality founders and platforms concentrate, refining strategy based on observed outcomes. ○ Form conviction on early-stage companies by integrating technical or mechanistic clarity, platform potential and expandability, unmet-need logic, founder readiness to engage and execute. ○ Advance or decline opportunities early, applying judgment to preserve focus and execution quality.
• Founder Engagement & Execution Support: ○ Work directly with founders and Entrepreneurs-in-Residence to clarify near-term objectives and execution milestones. ○ Pressure-test technical, development, and commercialization assumptions to improve decision quality and momentum. ○ Assess founder responsiveness to feedback and execution demands as a core signal of readiness.
• Founder Resource Coordination: ○ Coordinate founder-facing resources and cross-functional support to ensure founders receive the right inputs at the right time to advance execution milestones. ○ Align internal contributors, Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, and external experts around company needs. ○ Translate execution gaps into targeted resource deployment and follow-through.
• Discernment, Reporting & Operating Rigor: ○ Participate in, and ultimately own, prioritization and selection decisions that often involve incomplete data, building judgment through these experiences, and actively contributing to real outcomes. ○ Apply deep technical and domain expertise to build and operate structured diligence frameworks that inform venture development, continuously improving those frameworks through execution feedback and observed outcomes. ○ Continuously refine heuristics for identifying strong founders and platforms based on execution outcomes and decision feedback. ○ Maintain structured workflows for sourcing, evaluation depth, founder engagement, and resource coordination. ○ Develop dashboards and concise reports that communicate company progress, learning, and impact to internal and external stakeholders.
• Strategic & Special Initiatives: ○ Contribute to strategic initiatives, partnership outreach, grant development, and related efforts where execution insight, systems thinking, and judgment are required.
• Other duties as assigned

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree