Unity Growth Fund is looking for an exceptional Lead to build and run Unity Venture Studio. Our platform for identifying high-conviction opportunities and co-founding companies alongside exceptional technical founders. You will operate at the intersection of venture investing, company creation, talent, research, and zero-to-one execution. The mandate is to turn differentiated insights, exceptional people, and access to the Unity ecosystem into category-defining companies.
About Unity Growth Fund
Founded in 2021, Unity Growth Fund is a VC firm based in the D.C. metro area, investing across AI, defense, and deeptech. Our portfolio spans growth and late-stage companies including Figure, Databricks, Harvey, and Apptronik, alongside early-stage investments such as Persona AI, AMI Labs, Recursive Superintelligence, Normal Computing, and others.
We are now building Unity Venture Studio, where we will partner with exceptional technical talent to identify important problems, validate opportunities, assemble teams, and co-found companies across the AI stack.
The studio will leverage Unity's portfolio, research capabilities, investor network, technical community, and access to operators and design partners to give founders an unfair advantage from day one.
The Role
As Lead, you will own the operating engine of Unity Venture Studio.
You will work directly with the GP and Head of Research, while leading the studio team and coordinating closely with founders, portfolio companies, technical experts, investors, and institutional partners.
Your job is to create a repeatable system for turning talent + insight + whitespace into venture-scale companies.
What You'll Own
Founder & EIR Talent
Build a pipeline of Entrepreneurs-in-Residence and technical founders.
Own sourcing, evaluation, selection, references, and onboarding.
Develop relationships across research labs, frontier technology companies, universities, founder communities, and the global startup ecosystem.
Company Formation
Work with EIRs from thesis to company formation.
Help teams define the problem, validate customer pain, identify design partners, test market assumptions, establish milestones, and determine whether to accelerate, pivot, or stop.
Whitespace & Venture Research
Partner with Unity's research team to systematically identify emerging markets and overlooked opportunities through:
- Technological inflection points
- Portfolio company pain points
- Design-partner conversations
- Founder and researcher networks
- Market intelligence
- Emerging infrastructure and gaps across the AI stack
Founder Support
Match founders with relevant portfolio execs, domain experts, technical advisors, customers, and mentors.
Help founders recruit early team members, develop GTM strategies, establish design partnerships, and navigate zero to one decisions.
Fundraising & Investor Readiness
Support EIRs with positioning, pitch development, financial models, data rooms, fundraising strategy, and investor introductions.
Studio Platform
Build the infrastructure required to scale Unity Venture Studio.
Develop operating playbooks, evaluation frameworks, dashboards, knowledge systems, founder resources, and institutional scouting programs.
Track studio performance from sourcing through company formation and financing.
Stakeholder Management
Own clear, high-quality reporting on studio activities, pipeline, milestones, portfolio formation, and outcomes for Unity leadership and relevant LP stakeholders.
Requirements
You have 4+ years of relevant experience in venture capital, company building, startups, consulting, investment banking, accelerators, or another high-intensity environment.
More importantly, you have:
- Exceptional judgment about people; particularly the ability to recognize unusual founder potential before it becomes obvious
- Strong analytical ability and high agency
- Intellectual curiosity; you naturally go deep on emerging technologies and markets
- Commercial instinct; you can distinguish technology from a compelling business
- Excellent communication and operational rigor; you can manage multiple workstreams.
You should be comfortable operating with significant autonomy and accountability.
Preffered
We are particularly interested in candidates who have one or more of the following:
- Built or operated a venture studio, accelerator, or EIR program
- Worked in venture capital or early-stage investing
- Founded or helped build an early-stage company
- Worked at a top-tier strategy consulting or investment banking firm
- Experience recruiting exceptional technical talent
- Strong networks across AI, deeptech, robotics, or research communities
- Experience taking companies from idea to initial customers or institutional financing
- Demonstrated obsession with AI and frontier technology