Full-Time
People and Talent Lead
Deep Tech
Posted on 10/2/2025
Octopus Investments
201-500 employees
Invests retail and institutional clients' capital
No salary listed
London, UK
In Person
 People & HR (2) |
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- You have experience recruiting talent for a DeepTech or BioTech business
- You know what it takes to hire top talent and have built efficient recruitment processes to enable this
- Building technical teams – you love tech and can nerd out with the best of the team, you’ve applied this in your career when building the teams of a deep tech business
- Org design – you have a view and understanding of how technical teams are structured, and how they work with other parts of the organization
- Heart and mind – you take a human centric approach to your work, and equally apply commercial logic/rational to plans/decisions
- Partner to founders – you approach your role as both a confidant and coach, comfortable providing direct feedback and guidance where appropriate
- Organization and planning – you are able to effectively prioritize and plan your workload such that you can execute in an efficient and autonomous manner
- Proactive and executes – you act without being told what to do, bringing new ideas to the team. And once you start a project or initiative, you see it through consistently and completely
- Partner with the CEOs and Leaders of Deep Tech and Bio Tech businesses, advising and partnering on hiring and retention strategies
- Support the design of leadership teams and organizations, scoping of roles, shape of interview processes and onboarding
- Contribute to the ongoing delivery and development of the Octopus Ventures value creation product such that you identify and own initiatives that will increase impact and founder satisfaction
- Build scalable frameworks or tools for use of portfolio leaders
- Gather and share insights on market trends (e.g., compensation, equity benchmarks, tooling) to inform hiring strategies
- Build a network of relevant early-stage candidates across the most common roles that arise such that you can make high-impact introductions
- Develop deep network of service providers, including exec recruiters and L+D specialists, that you can easily deploy into relevant projects
- Clearly document and articulate the measurable impact of talent initiatives to internal stakeholders and portfolio companies
- Work with the OV team to prioritise and manage projects in order to optimize for total value creation
Octopus Investments manages about 12.8 billion pounds from both retail and institutional investors. It invests in people, ideas, and industries that can change the world, focusing on three themes: empowering people, revitalising healthcare, and building a sustainable planet. For individuals, it offers products such as Venture Capital Trusts, Enterprise Investment Schemes, Business Relief-qualifying investments, and listed UK small- and medium-sized company funds. For institutions, it manages investments across five specialist asset classes: renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure, real estate, healthcare, and venture capital. Octopus Real Estate and Octopus Ventures operate under the same Octopus umbrella. The company aims to grow capital while directing funds toward areas that deliver measurable social and environmental impact, helping clients achieve their financial goals while supporting positive change.
Company Size
201-500
Company Stage
N/A
Total Funding
$68.2M
Headquarters
London, United Kingdom
Founded
2000
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Budget expands VCT limits, enabling £30M fundraise for AIM VCTs.
- FTSE Small Cap yields rise to 4.41% by 2026, exceeding FTSE 100.
- FTSE AIM delivers 22% earnings growth to 2025 at 13x P/E versus Nasdaq's 23.9x.
What critics are saying
- Prolonged J-curve in 2022 Future Generations VCT erodes returns, triggers redemptions in 6-12 months.
- HarbourVest secondaries divert investors from Octopus VCTs with faster liquidity in 12-18 months.
- UK AIM valuation gap persists, stagnating Netcall share prices versus FTSE Small Cap in 6-12 months.
What makes Octopus Investments unique
- Octopus Investments manages £12.8 billion across sustainable planet, healthcare, and empowering people themes.
- Octopus AIM VCTs, launched 1997 and 2005, hold over 70 AIM-listed growth companies like Netcall.
- Octopus Future Generations VCT, started 2022, targets early-stage innovative firms in three themes.
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Benefits
Flexible Work Hours
Company News
Vulcan Two Group, a company building the UK's leading regulated ePharmacy through acquisitions, has raised £40 million in gross proceeds through an oversubscribed placing of 20 million new ordinary shares at 200 pence per share. The fundraising attracted strong support from existing and new institutional investors. The net proceeds will fund acquisitions, provide working capital for the enlarged group and support bolt-on acquisitions and future trading growth. Related parties including Octopus Investments Limited, Gresham House Asset Management and Dowgate Group Limited conditionally subscribed for significant portions of the placing shares. The acquisitions and placing require shareholder approval at a general meeting scheduled for 17 March 2026. Canaccord Genuity acted as nominated adviser, sole bookrunner and sole broker for the transaction.
Milan-based startup Bricks.sh has raised €1.6 million in a pre-seed round led by Primo Capital to automate the creation of internal admin panels using AI. Octopus First Cheque Fund, Eden Ventures, Vesper Holding, Vento and several angel investors participated. The company addresses a common problem where engineering teams spend weeks or months building internal tools for refunds, subscriptions and user management—work that consumes development time without generating revenue. Bricks.sh's platform aims to eliminate the trade-off between speed and customisation in internal tool development. The startup, which has launched its public beta alongside the funding announcement, will use the capital to expand its team and grow its global customer base whilst improving its core product.
Octopus Investments has opened a £30 million fundraise for its two Alternative Investment Market VCTs. The investment manager aims to capitalise on the expanded investment limits announced in the recent Budget. AIM currently hosts over 620 companies across more than 40 sectors, with a combined worth exceeding £63 billion. The platform has served as a crucial funding source for UK smaller companies since its 1995 launch. The Octopus AIM VCTs, established in 1997 and 2005 respectively, offer investors exposure to portfolios spanning over 70 AIM-listed businesses at various maturity stages. The VCTs combine potential long-term growth from smaller companies with tax benefits, providing instant diversification across multiple growth-stage firms, many of which pay dividends. Portfolio holdings include Netcall, a software company specialising in digital transformation solutions.
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Welcome to our new Ask Octopus column, written by Tax Product Specialist at Octopus Investments, Toyin Oyeneyin. This is where, each quarter, we will tackle some of the more complex estate and tax planning questions that advisers are asking. Consider this your advice support column for all your estate planning queries!Our first adviser question is: How effective is gifting as an estate planning strategy? More specifically, I have questions around loss of access and how the gifting out of surplus income exemption rule works?Toyin’s answer: Gifting can be an attractive estate planning option because your clients can see their loved ones benefit from their wealth whilst they’re alive.In principle, it is a straightforward concept however, in practice, the rules around making a gift can be rather complex, and the effectiveness of them rests on some key points:Be bold and use as much as you can in exemptions and allowances.This can range from making full use of spousal and charitable gifts, wedding gift allowances, small gift allowances and the annual gifting allowance of up to £3,000 in total each year. These types of gifts attract immediate exemptions from Inheritance Tax (IHT).As for larger, non-regular gifts, they typically take seven years to become completely free from IHT (hence the name, potentially exempt transfers, or “PETs”). This means that if your client dies within seven years of making a PET, they are unlikely to have been effective in reducing the inheritance tax bill due on their estate. So, it’s worth considering the age and health of the individual making such gifts.And of course, regular gifts out of income rules are an opportunity to make certain gifts free from IHT.Have precision in the timing of gifts:It serves to remember that certain gifting allowances are only per tax year, so timing is key