Venture Builder

Fresh Ventures Studio; Rotterdam; Hybrid; EUR 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work environment

Passionate team

Innovative projects

Mission-driven team

Health and wellbeing

Job summary

A mission-driven startup studio is looking for a Venture Builder to join its team in Rotterdam. The role involves guiding multiple ventures from idea to funding, focusing on creating regenerative businesses. Candidates should have experience in building ventures and leading fundraising efforts, with a strong understanding of agri-food innovation. The position requires working closely with teams and contributing to the startup ecosystem, all while maintaining a hands-on approach. A great opportunity to be part of pioneering efforts in sustainable business practices.

Qualifications

• Experience in building ventures or leading projects from inception to launch.
• Ability to lead fundraising efforts for early-stage ventures.
• Track record in agri-food innovation with a regenerative approach.
• Built a track record in agri‑food innovation with regenerative angle or network in Dutch/European agri‑food sector.

Responsibilities

• Guide ventures through the process from validation to funding.
• Co-build propositions and MVPs with entrepreneurs.
• Design and run lean experiments to validate business models.
• Guide ventures towards aligned, suitable capital under patient, regenerative conditions.
• Coordinate support from experts, mentors and team members inside Fresh and act as an orchestrator of the wider ecosystem.
• Bring structure through milestone and stage‑gate approach and track progress for go/no‑go decisions.
• Design and facilitate high‑value sessions with clear outcomes and concrete decisions.
• Contribute to the studio methodology, sprints and templates as part of the studio playbook.

Skills

Venture building

Commercial skills

Design thinking

Agri-food innovation

Networking

Go-to-market

Pricing & pilots

Regenerative principles

Job description

About Fresh Ventures Studio

Fresh Ventures is a mission-driven startup studio based in The Netherlands. We build regenerative businesses that help regenerate the food system and nurture the health of our soils, food and people.

We work at the intersection of:

• Regenerative, agroecological and nature inclusive food systems
• Venture building and entrepreneurship
• New forms of ownership, governance and finance

We co-found these companies with experienced professionals and entrepreneurs to tackle deep, systemic issues in the food system and help them grow into impactful, investable businesses.

About the role

We are looking for a Venture Builder to join our core team in Rotterdam.

Your core responsibility is to guide promising ventures towards funded, regeneratively-built businesses with real customers, a viable model, and set up for systemic impact.

You combine hands‑on venture building with strategic venture architecture and a structured, founder‑centric approach. With stage‑gates in mind, you support founders to grow into regenerative leaders who move into independence over time. Working alongside the teams in our studio, you drive progress towards key milestones, help them avoid pitfalls, and connect them with the right resources/expertise.

Because we build ventures that can both thrive in and shift the current economic system, you will also play a role in nurturing our transformative venture‑building approach by weaving together new forms of ownership, financing and organising, and innovating on many traditional aspects of startups and businesses.

The position is full‑time. While hybrid work is common within Fresh, you are expected to work from our Rotterdam office a few days per week.

What you will do

• Work closely with 3–5 venture teams from validation to early product–market fit and their first funding rounds.
• Co‑build propositions, MVPs and experiments with founders, not just review them, while keeping ownership and learning with the team.
• Help ventures find and serve their first customers and design robust business and financial models.
• Guide ventures towards aligned, fitting capital under the best possible conditions (patient, regenerative where possible).
• Coordinate support around ventures inside Fresh – experts, mentors, team members and partners – and act as an orchestrator of the wider ecosystem.
• Bring structure through our milestone and stage‑gate approach, helping teams and the studio track progress and make clear go, no‑go or pivot decisions.
• Design and facilitate high‑value sessions with clear outcomes – turning time together into concrete decisions, experiments and progress.
• Contribute to the further design of our venture studio methodology, sprints and learning formats, and help build reusable infrastructure and templates as part of the studio playbook.

What you bring

Experience

• Built at least one venture as founder or co‑founder and/or carried real responsibility through the 0–1 phase, actually getting it off the ground.
• Found and served customers (sales, pilots, projects, contracts) and understand what it takes to create real demand and commercial success.
• Led fundraising for early‑stage projects or ventures (grants, angels, pre‑seed or seed), or sat on the other side of the table (investor or funder) and can translate that perspective into practice.
• Built a track record in agri‑food innovation, ideally with a regenerative angle and a network in the Dutch / European agri‑food sector.

Skills

• Feel comfortable taking responsibility for business and financial models and for the overall financing path of several ventures at once.
• Work in a strong, hands‑on way on venture building and proposition development, preferring to build, test and iterate with founders rather than only giving feedback.
• Architect a venture: from system problem and vision to beachhead, value proposition, impact logic and investment case.
• Design and run lean experiments and validation loops, using design thinking with users and focusing on the riskiest assumptions.
• Bring commercial and go‑to‑market skills and help shape early approaches, from target customers and offers to pricing and pilots.
• Challenge founders when needed, including entering healthy confrontation to re‑steer, refocus or point out blind spots.
• Coordinate support from experts, mentors and team members, and work for replication by developing infrastructure, templates and processes that strengthen the studio playbook over time.
• Bring systems and regenerative impact literacy and connect venture choices to systemic leverage and regenerative principles.

Personality

• Think and act like an entrepreneur: look for routes forward, apply the 80/20 rule instinctively, and focus on what really moves the needle for ventures.
• Be a builder, not just an advisor, and enjoy producing and shipping things together with teams.
• Bring structure and reliability without becoming rigid, and balance process with outcome focus.
• Stay calm and grounded, especially when things get messy or uncertain.
• Be reflective, open to feedback and aligned with regenerative values and systemic change.

Other

• Can be physically present in Rotterdam several days per week.
• Has, or can quickly build, a useful network in the Dutch agri‑food ecosystem; relationships with regenerative actors and impact capital are a strong plus.
• Dutch language is a plus.

What do we offer

• Working alongside of very passionate, mission‑driven and inspiring founders
• Being part of an ecosystem of pioneers, working on forefront of regenerative food systems
• Flexible work environment with inspiring events within our community
• A strongly purpose‑driven team which cultivates a growth mindset and is committed to personal health & development
• Opportunity to work on innovative, transformative venture building

How to Apply

Please apply through the form in the vacancy page. Selected candidates are contacted for additional questions and a personality profile survey. Short screening call to check alignment. First in depth motivational interview to explore potential fit. Second interview with Fresh’s founders.

An ideal start date is around mid‑February 2026.

Deadline for applications is Friday, January 13th, at 11:59pm CET. We accept applications on a rolling basis, and will reach out to qualified individuals who get their application in early.

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