Full-Time

Operations

Generalist / Business Operations

Valthos

Valthos

11-50 employees

AI-powered biosurveillance platform for biodefense

No salary listed

New York, NY, USA

In Person

Category
Business & Strategy (1)
Required Skills
Financial analysis
Investment Banking
Excel/Numbers/Sheets
Financial Modeling

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Requirements
  • The candidate must have 3+ years in a high-ownership, high-tempo operational role, such as an early-stage startup operator, chief of staff, investment banking, management consulting, private equity, or venture capital.
  • The candidate must be able to own projects end-to-end in ambiguous environments, with minimal structure and minimal supervision.
  • The candidate must have strong financial and analytical fluency, including comfort building models in Excel, running scenario analyses, and reasoning from numbers under time pressure.
  • The candidate must have exceptional written and verbal communication skills for drafting memos, investor updates, and internal and external materials.
  • The candidate must have high attention to detail and organization.
  • The candidate must demonstrate high ownership and a bias to action.
  • The candidate must be comfortable operating across office operations and interactions with senior government stakeholders or top-tier investors.
  • The candidate must be willing to travel when needed, including to customer sites.
Responsibilities
  • Own the company's day-to-day operations, including facilities, information technology, office management, vendor management, travel, and other activities required to keep the team productive.
  • Build the company's financial backbone by constructing and maintaining financial models, scenario-planning budget and runway, partnering with external accounting on close, and running spend, payroll, and treasury as needed.
  • Establish core business infrastructure, including equity administration, benefits, payroll, corporate policies, compliance, and vendor systems, choosing and replacing tools as the company grows.
  • Support recruiting and people operations end-to-end by sourcing candidates, running scheduling, managing offers and onboarding, and helping architect the company's culture and operating cadence.
  • Lead special projects such as establishing security and clearance workflows, opening a new office, and running internal offsites and all-hands.
  • Provide operational support to commercial and government engagements, helping move proposals, contracts, and procurement workflows to completion.
  • Serve as the operational face of the company with investors, regulators, contractors, and vendors.
  • Translate feedback from investors, customers, and vendors into operational decisions and priorities.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience at a high-growth startup, ideally as one of the first non-engineering hires.
  • Experience setting up finance and people operations systems from scratch.
  • Experience with early-stage fundraising.
  • Experience in defense technology, national security, or government contracting.

Valthos builds an AI-powered biosurveillance platform that aggregates data from air and wastewater monitoring, genomic sequencing, and public sources to detect emerging biological threats in real time. The system uses frontier AI to rapidly characterize biological sequences, identify anomalies, and speed up the design and deployment of medical countermeasures. Its leadership blends veterans from Palantir, Google DeepMind, Stanford’s Arc Institute, and MIT’s Broad Institute, combining data integration with life-sciences expertise to pursue proactive biodefense. The goal is to close the biodefense advantage by making threat detection and countermeasure development fast, data-driven, and adaptive through government contracts, public health programs, and defense licensing.

Company Size

11-50

Company Stage

Seed

Total Funding

$30M

Headquarters

New York City, New York

Founded

2024

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • OpenAI, Lux Capital, and Founders Fund backed Valthos with $30 million.
  • Valthos.com updated August 2026 says hiring remains active, signaling continued buildout.
  • Forbes updated July 28, 2026 spotlighted Valthos, sustaining buyer and talent awareness.

What critics are saying

  • HigherGov shows no contracts or grants through January 2026, blocking revenue validation.
  • Valthos terminated Invariant lobbying June 15, 2026, weakening Washington access during procurement.
  • OpenAI's Rosalind Biodefense and Red Queen Bio intensify competition; one failure kills trust.

What makes Valthos unique

  • Kathleen McMahon and Tess van Stekelenburg combine Palantir, DeepMind, Broad expertise.
  • Valthos targets real-time biological threat detection, not retrospective outbreak analytics.
  • Government and life-science workflows define its product, aligning defense buyers and labs.

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Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

-14%

1 year growth

-14%

2 year growth

-14%
Tech in Asia
Oct 25th, 2025
OpenAI joins $30m funding for biotech AI startup Valthos

OpenAI joins $30m funding for biotech AI startup Valthos. Valthos, a biotech startup, has secured US$30 million in funding from the OpenAI Startup Fund, Lux Capital, and Founders Fund. The company develops AI-powered tools for government and life sciences organizations to help identify and respond to biological threats. Valthos said its technology aims to speed up the detection and mitigation of risks posed by advances in biotechnology. The founding team includes former employees from Palantir, DeepMind, the Broad Institute, and the Arc Institute. The startup is currently hiring to expand its operations. Food for thought. DoD compliance takes more than slogans. * Valthos says it serves government and life sciences customers yet cites no federal procurements, pilots, or partnerships that prove use in biodefense. * For Department of Defense (DoD) projects with Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) or National Security Systems (NSS), cloud services must hold Impact Level 5 (IL5) authorization 1. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) evaluates providers, then issues a provisional authorization aligned to Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) High baselines 1. * DoD agencies cannot run CUI or NSS workloads on a vendor platform unless the environment is IL5 authorized and built on a FedRAMP High baseline 1. Access must be limited to US citizens, US nationals, or US persons within IL5 locations with separation rules 1. * Press releases do not equal contracts. Check DoD procurement records and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards to see if agencies are piloting or buying Valthos' tools. Cloud providers can win biodefense AI demand. * Government use of biodefense AI will lift demand for GPU infrastructure that meets DoD IL5 rules 1. Azure Government is Microsoft's US government cloud and offers IL5 GPU compute in US Gov Arizona, Texas, and Virginia 1. * Vendors without IL5 GPU services face a gap 1. Integrating NVIDIA H100 class compute within FedRAMP High based IL5 environments opens deals 1. * Parallel Works, a platform for orchestrating high-performance computing (HPC) workflows, secured DoD IL5 authorization in August 2025 for hybrid multi-cloud HPC management for defense contractors and national labs 2. * System integrators, IT services firms that assemble and secure complex systems, can build pipelines that link IL5 cloud environments to Defense Supercomputing Resource Centers 2. These pipelines ease the bottleneck between biodefense AI development and authorized deployment infrastructure 2. How would you feel if you could no longer use Tech in Asia?

PYMNTS
Oct 24th, 2025
OpenAI-Backed Valthos Raises $30 Million to Combat AI-Enabled Biological Threats

OpenAI-Backed Valthos raises $30 million to combat ai-enabled biological threats. Valthos said Friday (Oct. 24) that it has raised $30 million to build "next-generation biodefense" to combat the threat of biological threats enabled by artificial intelligence. This kind of defense is needed because AI has expanded access to biotechnologies that can create diseases as well as eliminate them, the company said in a Friday blog post. "Today, it's faster to weaponize biology than to advance new cures," Valthos said in its post. "Leaders in AI have identified this as one of the largest threats of our time." Valthos is building tools that government and life sciences experts can use to identify biological threats and design medical countermeasures to respond to them, according to the company's website. "We build AI systems to rapidly characterize biological sequences and update medicines in real time," the company said in the post. "This strengthens biodefense today and lays the groundwork for the adaptive, precision therapeutics of tomorrow." Valthos Co-founder and CEO Kathleen McMahon wrote in a Friday post on X: "We have an opportunity to use emerging AI methods to strengthen biodefense - earlier detection of threats, faster, more precise medicine. It's a race to get these systems in place to deter the worst case and we're running out of time. This is the problem I want to solve." McMahon added in another Friday post that Valthos will bring expertise in operational software and machine language to experts who are on the frontline of biodefense. Valthos said in its blog post that its investors include the OpenAI Startup Fund, Lux Capital and Founders Fund. Lux Capital Partner Grace Isford wrote in a Friday post on X: "Thrilled to unveil [Lux Capital] incubation [Valthos] - they're building next-generation biodefense powered by AI." Isford added in the post that McMahon built and led Palantir's life sciences business. PYMNTS reported in October 2024 that AI is transforming pharmaceutical research, compressing timelines and potentially slashing drug prices. A 2024 report sponsored by the State Department revealed national security threats due to fast-developing artificial intelligence and highlighted the urgent need for federal action to prevent a crisis, PYMNTS reported at the time.

TechStartups
Oct 24th, 2025
OpenAI backs $30M investment in biosecurity startup Valthos to stop AI-engineered biological attacks - Tech Startups

The same technology that can write poetry, design proteins, or diagnose disease is now being used to prevent something far darker — AI-assisted biological attacks. To get ahead of that threat, OpenAI has teamed up with Founders Fund and Lux Capital to invest $30 million in Valthos, a New York-based biosecurity startup developing software that

TechStartups
Oct 24th, 2025
OpenAI backs $30M investment in biosecurity startup Valthos to stop AI-engineered biological attacks

OpenAI backs $30M investment in biosecurity startup Valthos to stop ai-engineered biological attacks. The same technology that can write poetry, design proteins, or diagnose disease is now being used to prevent something far darker - AI-assisted biological attacks. To get ahead of that threat, OpenAI has teamed up with Founders Fund and Lux Capital to invest $30 million in Valthos, a New York-based biosecurity startup developing software that can detect and counter engineered biological threats in real time. Bloomberg confirmed the funding, reporting, "On Friday, the nine-person startup is officially emerging from stealth, with $30 million in funding from OpenAI, Founders Fund and Lux Capital." The announcement brings Valthos out of stealth mode and places it squarely in the spotlight of one of the most urgent frontiers in technology: defending humanity from AI-driven bioterrorism. Valthos's small but formidable nine-person team is building tools that use artificial intelligence to scan biological data from government and commercial databases, spotting early signs of danger long before an outbreak spreads. The startup's goal is ambitious - to build a system that can identify biological threats and generate countermeasures on the fly. In short, they want to outsmart biological evolution using what they call "applied biological intelligence." Valthos emerges from stealth with $30M in funding from OpenAI and Founders Fund to prevent ai-fueled pandemics. The timing couldn't be more tense. A recent report from the Center for AI Safety painted a chilling picture: a terrorist with basic lab access could, with AI's help, create a hybrid pathogen - as contagious as measles, as deadly as smallpox, and as evasive as HIV. That possibility has rattled experts across public health, defense, and AI research. Kathleen McMahon, co-founder and CEO of Valthos, says the company's mission is to stay ahead of those risks. "The only way to deter an attack is to know when it's happening, update countermeasures, and deploy them fast," she said. McMahon co-founded Valthos with Tess van Stekelenburg, bringing together veterans from Palantir, DeepMind, the Broad Institute, and the Arc Institute - a team that blends experience in AI, data systems, and biotechnology. Together, they're building what they describe as a "biosecurity shield" for the AI age. OpenAI's participation adds an intriguing layer. The company behind ChatGPT has faced growing pressure over the dual-use nature of its technology - tools that can both help and harm, depending on who's behind the keyboard. By backing Valthos, OpenAI is effectively investing in guardrails for its own creation. The move aligns with recent calls from researchers and policymakers for multi-layered defenses: tighter oversight of DNA synthesis, stronger controls on biological data in AI models, and better coordination between tech firms and health agencies. Founders Fund and Lux Capital, both known for early bets on frontier science and technology, are backing the effort too - a signal that investors see biosecurity as a field that's about to scale. For them, Valthos represents more than a niche defense play; it's a hedge against one of AI's most existential risks. Valthos is hiring aggressively as it expands its partnerships with governments and research organizations worldwide. With new capital in hand, the company plans to accelerate development of its early-warning and response systems - technology that could help prevent the next pandemic before it starts. In an era where a line of code can shape the fate of biology, Valthos is betting that AI's best defense against itself lies in turning intelligence into vigilance.

Investing.com
Oct 24th, 2025
OpenAI Funds Valthos with $30M

OpenAI, Founders Fund, and Lux Capital have invested $30 million in Valthos Inc., a New York-based biosecurity software startup. Co-founded by Kathleen McMahon and Tess van Stekelenburg, Valthos is developing AI-powered tools to detect and counter potential bioweapon threats. The startup aggregates biological data from various sources and partners with pharmaceutical companies for manufacturing and distribution.