Corporate Development Associate

Menlo; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Menlo in San Francisco seeks a Corporate Development hire to spearhead fundraising, build partnerships, and evaluate strategic deals in a fast-paced environment.

This pivotal role involves working with the founding team to shape the company’s growth through capital and partnerships, requiring 3 to 6 years of relevant experience. You'll have a direct impact on decision-making and outcomes while operating in a dynamic setting.

Qualifications

• 3 to 6 years of experience across investment banking, venture capital, or corporate development.
• Strong financial modeling and deal structuring skills required.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multi-stakeholder processes effectively.

Responsibilities

• Drive the end-to-end fundraising process and maintain investor relations.
• Identify and develop partnerships for deploying Asimov.
• Source, evaluate, and structure strategic deals and acquisitions.

Skills

Financial modeling

Deal structuring

Communication skills

Ability to manage complex processes

Comfort with ambiguity

Job description

About Menlo

Menlo Research is an Applied R&D lab building Asimov, an open‑source humanoid robot platform, and the full software stack that powers it. Our mission is to make humanoid labor economically viable -- turning software into physical labor at scale. We build across the full stack: hardware architecture, locomotion, autonomy, simulation, and infrastructure. We move fast, ship to real robots, and open‑source everything we can. If you want your work to matter beyond a paper or a demo, this is the place.

The Role

Menlo is at an inflection point. We are shipping hardware, scaling our platform, and building commercial relationships with forward‑looking organizations who want to deploy a robot labor force. As our first Corporate Development hire, you will work directly with the founding team to shape how Menlo grows -- through capital, partnerships, and strategic deals. This is a generalist corp dev role: you will touch fundraising, BD, and M&A simultaneously and figure out what matters most as we scale.

What You Will Do

Fundraising and Investor Relations

• Support and drive the end‑to‑end fundraising process, including materials, investor outreach, data room management, and follow‑through.
• Build and maintain relationships with VCs, family offices, and strategic investors across Singapore, Southeast Asia, and globally.
• Track the funding landscape for robotics and embodied AI and keep the team briefed on relevant activity.

Partnerships and Business Development

• Identify, qualify, and develop commercial relationships with organizations looking to pilot or deploy Asimov.
• Negotiate and close partnership agreements, MOUs, and commercial pilots.
• Work with the Menlo Platform and Asimov teams to shape what we offer partners and how.
• Represent Menlo at industry events, conferences, and in external meetings.

Strategic Deals and M&A

• Source and evaluate acquisition targets, strategic investments, and talent deals.
• Run financial modeling, due diligence, and deal structuring for any inorganic opportunities.
• Synthesize market intelligence to inform where Menlo should invest or expand.

What You Will Bring

• 3 to 6 years of experience across investment banking, venture capital, management consulting, or in‑house corp dev.
• Strong financial modeling and deal structuring skills.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex, multi‑stakeholder processes end to end.
• Excellent written and verbal communication -- you can make a compelling case in a deck, a memo, or a room.
• Comfort operating with ambiguity and switching between strategic and executional work on the same day.
• Based in Singapore or willing to relocate.

Nice to Have

• Prior exposure to deep tech, robotics, or hardware companies.
• Existing network in the Southeast Asia venture or corporate ecosystem.
• Experience closing commercial pilots or enterprise contracts.
• Mandarin or Vietnamese language skills.

Why Join Menlo

You will have meaningful ownership over how Menlo grows. This is not a support role -- you will be in the room for consequential decisions and responsible for outcomes. Menlo moves fast, operates lean, and you will see the direct impact of your work on the company's trajectory.

A Note on AI

You don't need deep AI expertise for every role, but we do expect everyone at Menlo to be intellectually curious, drawn to tinkering and discovery, and excited to use AI as a real collaborator in their work. For some roles, AI fluency is a core requirement. When that's the case, we'll say so explicitly in the qualifications. People who thrive here don't treat AI as a novelty. They use it to think better, and make their work easier for others to build on.

Equal Opportunity and Accommodations

We hire talented people from a wide range of backgrounds. If you're excited about a role but don't meet every bullet, we still encourage you to apply. Menlo Research is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of any legally protected characteristic. Menlo provides reasonable accommodations during the application process. If you need one, please let your recruiter know.