Financial Controller

The opportunity Substrate is building a network of fully autonomous wet labs, cloud-based data production facilities for AI biology, integrated with foundation models to become the critical infrastructure layer for AI-driven biological discovery. Our first node opens in King’s Cross, London, with several integrated workcells and two scientific verticals online by mid-2027. Our customers range from foundation model labs to global pharma. We are hiring a financial controller to build the finance function from scratch.

Substrate is a deeply unusual finance problem: significant capital expenditure on workcells and lab infrastructure, large parallel grant programmes, a venture round, and a usage-priced commercial model that translates physical lab capacity into customer cost. You will own how we account for it, how we price it, and how we explain it to investors and grant funders.

About Substrate: Substrate is spinning out of Automata, the UK lab automation company that has built the workcell platform our labs run on. Our four co‑founders are Mostafa ElSayed (CEO and founder of Automata), Oli Hoy (formerly VP Customer Experience at Automata), Alexey Morgunov (AI Scientist co‑founder, leading the intelligence software product), and a founding biology lead joining shortly. We are aiming to have ramped up to 32 people by the end of Q1 2027. We are funded in parallel by a combination of venture funding and government grants. We are not a cloud lab and we are not a CRO. We are an autonomous lab platform with closed‑loop integration available as one operating mode for foundation model partners.

The role: You will own the finance function end to end. Day one priorities are the obvious operational pieces of a growing company: month‑end close, management accounts, payroll across a team that will reach 32 by Q1 2027, statutory accounts, the first audit, and the cap table through our SAFE round and into Series A. Two parts of the role are not standard, and they are why this role is so crucial to Substrate’s success.

• The first is capital‑intensive accounting. Substrate runs a CAPEX‑heavy operating model: automated workcells, lab fit‑out, ancillary instrumentation, and transport integration each carry their own contracting, depreciation, eligibility, and grant treatment. We have parallel ARIA and DSIT grants with different eligible‑cost rules, different claim cycles, and different audit expectations. You will own how we structure those claims, how we evidence them, how we sequence spend against drawdown timing, and how we explain the resulting cash position to the board.
• The second is pricing. We sell access to our platform on a usage basis, and we price on a token‑based model that maps the physical inputs of a run (instrument time, materials, compute, complexity) onto a cleaner customer‑facing unit of value. We have a working hypothesis. You will stress‑test it, build the underlying cost model, set the incentive structure, take it to early customers, and operationalise it as the commercial pricing system. This is finance work and product work at once. It is the single highest‑impact piece of finance work in the company.

You will also be the executive partner to the co‑founders on anything financial: the financial model, fundraising materials, board reporting, and scenario planning. You will build the team underneath you over the first eighteen months.

What you will do in your first twelve months:

• FIRST 90 DAYS: Take ownership of the books, payroll, and the close. Decide what stays in‑house and what gets outsourced for the next twelve months. Sit down with each co‑founder. Understand the financial model in detail. Build your own version of it if useful. Set up the grant accounting infrastructure for ARIA and DSIT. Get the first claim out cleanly.
• MONTHS 4 TO 8: Stress‑test and rebuild the pricing model. Take a refined token‑based pricing structure to early customers and incorporate their feedback. Stand up the management accounts and board pack. Make Substrate a company whose finances can be explained in five minutes. Run the Year 1 audit cleanly.

Compensation and equity: We pay competitively against the London market for senior finance leaders at venture‑backed companies, calibrated to seniority and to the specific scope of this role. We will discuss numbers with serious candidates after first conversations. Equity is meaningful, with vesting on the standard four‑year schedule and a one‑year cliff. We can talk through the philosophy and the maths in detail when we meet.

How we work: Working pattern is hybrid with a strong in‑person bias. We expect you to be at our King’s Cross site at least three days a week, and most of the founding team are in the office most days. Audits, board prep, payroll, and the kind of finance conversations that actually move things forward are easier when you are in the room. 30 days annual leave. A learning budget you can use for conferences, courses, books, and time. The founding team operates on a weekly cadence with a Monday planning meeting and a Friday close, and a quarterly off‑site. We are direct with each other, we write things down, and we expect to be challenged.

The team you will join: You will report to Oli Hoy, co‑founder, who leads our autonomous lab buildout and the broader operations of the company. You will work most closely with Mostafa ElSayed on commercial and fundraising matters, and with the co‑founder team as a whole on the financial model and board reporting. You are the first finance hire. Substrate is currently four co‑founders growing to roughly thirty people by the end of 2026. 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.