Looking to apply to the Zinc Venture Builder? Here’s everything you need to know
Zinc is seeking 50 extremely ambitious, talented individuals from across the globe who want to become Zinc Founders and build businesses to Improve the Health of People and the Planet.
The 12-month Venture Builder starts full-time, in-person in our London headquarters, in October-November and April-May of each year. Will you rise to the challenge and join us?
Zinc is an early-stage investor. We back Founders who want to build a new mission-driven business, even if they don’t yet have a team or an idea. We support the Founders to build brand new commercial businesses by providing access to co-Founders, investment, experts, in-house research & development (R&D) support and a proven process to launch a new venture.
You can find a full list of our FAQs in the document below, but here are a few questions you may find useful:
read the full FAQs hereWhat will the hours be like? Can I work on something else while on the Venture Builder or could I join part-time?
The Venture Builder is a full-time commitment, based in London. We do not offer remote or part-time options as it requires 100% commitment and focus – you will need to step away from any full-time professional commitments to join and build your new business.
What is the Zinc investment?
When Zinc backs a Founder to build a business, you receive up to £300,000 in funding. This breaks down as:
- £12,00 stipend across the first 6 months per founder
- £150,000 initial investment for any company that we decide to back
- ~£150,000 follow on investment in the company’s seed round
Is there an application deadline?
Places are offered on a first come first serve, rolling basis and we receive hundreds of applications for every Venture Builder. As a result, applying earlier is best, especially if you require a visa or have a notice period to meet.
What happens if I miss an application round deadline? Or just recently found out about the Venture Builder at the end of the application process?
We have application rounds, but there is no clear-cut deadline for submitting an application. We are seeking great talent 365 days a year.
read the full FAQs hereTo apply today visit our Build your business page! Alternatively, visit our Mission page to find out more about the missions and investment priorities.
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Featured Resources
Zinc Impact Report 2024
Zinc’s mission is to make the UK the best place to successfully start a venture which can have a massive impact on the health of people and the planet.
Increasingly, we are building deeper science ventures that serve global, industrial customers in environment and health, giving access to impact at a global scale.
Our 2024 Impact Report explores the challenges that need to be tackled to empower and enable talented founders from around the world to solve critical health and environmental challenges at scale, from here in the UK.
This report showcases success stories from the Zinc portfolio, and highlights how Zinc – and our growing community of hundreds of Founders, Fellows, Coaches, Partners and Funders – are working together to build a world-leading “Science-for-Impact” ecosystem for inception stage ventures in health and environment.
Impact Report 2023
We started Zinc with the hypothesis that missions are an effective way to attract highly ambitious, talented and experienced groups of innovators, who might not recognise themselves as “classic entrepreneurs” but are ready and able to start a new commercial and successful venture to tackle some of our most pressing societal issues.
The world has overcome the sorts of challenges we face today when it has adopted a mission-based approach to the biggest problems and brought together world-class talent to invent and innovate, e.g: NASA and landing a man on the moon, the LSE blueprinting the British welfare state, or the Gates Foundation aiming to eradicate diseases.
On this basis and assumption, we designed Zinc as a new mission-based Venture Builder — a place where global talent, ‘impact makers’, can join to experiment and develop new solutions to our most pressing societal issues.