Founding Finance Lead

Open roles across robotics, biology, and infrastructure. London-based; some roles remote-friendly.

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), 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:

• 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.
• Capital intensity and the debt that funds it: You account for that spend, structure and manage the venture and infrastructure debt that funds it, and sequence drawdown so the cash position stays clear.
• Pricing: We sell access to our platform on a usage basis, priced on a model that maps the physical inputs of a run onto a cleaner customer-facing unit of value.

You will build a finance function that is augmented by AI from the start; you are as interested in designing the systems that run the close and the numbers as in running them yourself. You will be pragmatic about doing the work directly through the early months, and you will build the team underneath you as Substrate grows.

Your First 90 Days:

• By day 30: Take ownership of the books, payroll and the close, and decide what stays in house and what is outsourced. Sit down with each co-founder and take ownership of the financial model. Get a grip on the cap table and the funding mechanics.
• By day 60: Stand up the management accounts and a clear monthly rhythm. Make Substrate a company whose finances can be explained in five minutes. Get into the pricing problem: build the underlying cost model and stress-test the current hypothesis.
• By day 90: Take a refined usage-based pricing structure to early customers and incorporate their feedback. Have the first audit and the R&D tax position planned and underway.

Who You Are: You are an experienced finance leader who has built or rebuilt a finance function in a capital-intensive, usage-priced business. You have done this in an adjacent infrastructure business: compute, cloud, data centres, energy, telecoms, manufacturing, or somewhere similar that builds physical capacity and sells it on a usage basis. You write clearly for investors, and you can take a complicated set of numbers and make it simple.

Must have:

• A track record of building or rebuilding a finance function end to end.
• Strong FP&A ownership.
• Direct experience of CAPEX-heavy operating models.
• Corporate finance and debt experience.
• Direct experience of usage-priced commercial models.

Nice to have:

• Experience with government grant or other non-dilutive funding.
• The Series A and Series B fundraise cycle.
• Designing or operationalising token-based, unit-based, or otherwise usage-quantified pricing.

Why This Is Unusual: Most finance leadership roles at venture-backed companies are either pure SaaS finance or operational finance at a more mature stage. This is neither. You will design a finance function for a capital-intensive infrastructure business with a usage-priced commercial model, debt-funded CAPEX, and a live funding round.

How We Work: We are London-based and we work in a hybrid way. The founding team is spread across London, New York and Europe and travels often. We work to a weekly cadence, with a Monday planning meeting and a Friday close.

Our UK benefits include: 30 days annual leave, plus your birthday off, a salary-sacrifice pension with a 10% employer contribution, private medical insurance, income protection, life cover and critical illness, a personal financial coach and annual financial planning.

The Team You Will Join: You will report to Oli Hoy, co-founder, who leads infrastructure, software and operations and currently carries finance until you take it on.

Our Process: We move quickly on people we are excited about. The process has four stages: an initial screen; a behavioural and values conversation; a technical session on the finance and commercial substance of the role; and references.

Substrate is an equal opportunity employer. We make hiring decisions on merit, scope-fit, and the strength of the working relationship we expect to build with each hire. Applications welcome from candidates of any background.