Founding Finance Lead

Job description

The Opportunity Substrate is building the critical infrastructure layer between AI and biology: an AI-native automated lab that produces biological data at scale. Biological foundation models can predict but cannot experiment, and the high-quality data they need does not exist at the scale required. Substrate generates it, with quality and provenance built in. Our first lab opens in London in 2026, with protein characterisation coming online first and functional genomics following through 2027. Our customers range from foundation model labs to global pharma. We are hiring a founding finance leader to build the finance function from the ground up. Substrate is an unusual finance problem: significant capital expenditure on automated workcells and lab infrastructure, funding through both equity and debt, and a usage-priced commercial model that turns physical lab capacity into customer cost. You will own how we account for it, how we fund it, how we price it, and how we explain all of it to investors and lenders. About Substrate Substrate is an AI-native automated lab. Our four co-founders are Mostafa ElSayed (co-founder and CEO, and founder and CEO of Automata), Oli Hoy (co-founder, leading infrastructure, software and operations), Alexey Morgunov (co-founder, leading intelligence software and the science roadmap), and Anna Huyghues-Despointes (co-founder, leading commercial and partnerships). The automated lab runs on Automata's workcell platform. We are funded by a combination of equity and debt. We are not a CRO and we are not a cloud lab. We are the infrastructure that generates large-scale, high-quality, AI-ready biological data. The Role You will own the finance function end to end. The day-one priorities are the operational pieces of a fast-growing company: month-end close, management accounts, payroll, statutory accounts, the first audit, and the cap table. Three parts of this role go well beyond standard controllership, and they are why it matters so much to Substrate. Planning, analysis and corporate finance. You own the financial model, scenario planning, and the numbers that go to the co-founders and investors, and you are the finance partner in the room when commercial and fundraising decisions are made. You run the cap table through SAFE conversion and into the priced rounds that follow. Capital intensity and the debt that funds it. Substrate ru…