Venture Studio Associate
There is an exciting opportunity for a Venture Studio Associate to join Onni Capital in Vancouver. Onni Capital is a new investment and company building platform within the Onni Group. Operating at the intersection of a venture studio, private equity firm, and family office, we build new companies, invest in exceptional founders, and pursue opportunities where Onni's capital, operating platform, real estate portfolio, and industry relationships create a meaningful advantage. Onni Capital is being built from the ground up with the speed, ambition, and working style of a technology company. Our team works across venture creation, technology, private investments, fund investments, and special opportunities. This role exists to run a venture studio and write cheques, and it is one job rather than two. Onni Studio is a twelve week programme built on the Onni brand. Founders get space, capital, operating support, shared services, and access to a real estate and operating platform that most early stage companies would never reach. In exchange, Onni takes equity. Cohorts run roughly twenty companies with cheques in the $50,000 to $100,000 range, ending in a demo day with industry guests and follow on capital. Alongside the studio, Onni Capital writes direct venture cheques of roughly $250,000 to $2M into companies we do not operate. The mandate is broad, with a preference for proptech, construction technology, climate technology, fintech, and software where Onni's platform creates an advantage. As Venture Studio Associate, you own the studio and you screen the direct investments. Nobody else is doing this job. You are the first hire into the Ventures pillar and you will build the programme rather than administer one that already exists.
Responsibilities
- Running the studio — Design and run the twelve week programme end to end, including the week by week curriculum covering legal setup, engineering, product, marketing, and go to market
- Running the studio — Recruit each cohort, including outreach to founders, universities, accelerators, and the local technology community, then run selection
- Running the studio — Build and manage the mentor and industry network, including operators from Onni's businesses, external founders, investors, and service providers
- Running the studio — Run demo day, including format, guest list, investor attendance, founder preparation, and follow on capital conversations
- Running the studio — Negotiate and document studio investments, including equity terms, and coordinate with counsel on the standard instrument
- Running the studio — Manage the studio space, cohort logistics, and the day to day operating rhythm of the programme
- Running the studio — Track cohort outcomes, including product progress, revenue, follow on funding, and graduate destinations, and report on programme performance
- Direct venture investments — Source direct venture opportunities through the studio, Onni's network, funds Onni backs, and the founder community
- Direct venture investments — Screen opportunities and prepare investment recommendations with a clear view on team, market, product, and why Onni specifically should be on the cap table
- Direct venture investments — Run diligence on direct investments, including market work, customer references, technical assessment, and financial review
- Direct venture investments — Support term sheet negotiation and closing, working with counsel
- Direct venture investments — Monitor the venture portfolio, maintain relationships with founders, and identify follow on opportunities
- Across the pillar — Build the pipeline between studio graduates, venture investments, portfolio company roles, and Onni Capital itself
- Across the pillar — Identify where a studio company solves a problem inside Onni's operating businesses and broker that first customer relationship
- Across the pillar — Represent Onni Capital in the Vancouver founder and investor community, including events, sponsorships, and partnerships
- Across the pillar — Document processes, decisions, and operating standards so each cohort runs better than the last
- Across the pillar — Contribute to internal investment discussions, product reviews, demonstrations, and Onni Capital events
- Strong, repeatable deal flow producing high quality studio applicants and direct venture opportunities
- A well run cohort of approximately twenty companies with strong founder participation and completion
- Meaningful connections between studio companies and Onni operating businesses, including pilots, customer introductions, and commercial opportunities
Requirements
- Two to five years in venture capital, an accelerator or venture studio, startup operations, or as a founder. What matters is that you have been close to early stage companies and have seen what makes them work and fail
- Evidence of having built or run something yourself, whether a company, a product, a programme, a community, or a recurring event with real attendance
- Genuine credibility with founders. This job does not work if founders do not want to talk to you
- Strong commercial judgment and the ability to assess a team, a market, and a business model quickly and say what you actually think
- Financial modelling capability sufficient to build a business case from a blank sheet and to read a cap table and a term sheet without help
- Excellent programme and project management instincts. A twelve week cohort with twenty companies is a logistics job as much as an investment job
- Demonstrated ability to use modern AI tools to research, analyse, prototype, automate, and produce high quality work
- Strong written and verbal communication, including the ability to present to executives without jargon and to give a founder difficult feedback well
- A bias toward action and comfort making progress with incomplete information
- Comfort working in a small, fast moving team where responsibilities change as the programme develops
- High personal standards for accuracy, quality, ownership, and follow through
- Nice to Have — Experience running or working inside an accelerator or venture studio programme
- Nice to Have — An existing network in the Vancouver or Canadian startup ecosystem
- Nice to Have — Founder experience, including a company that did not work out
- Nice to Have — Exposure to proptech, construction technology, climate technology, fintech, or vertical software
- Nice to Have — Technical literacy sufficient to assess a product and talk credibly to engineers
- Nice to Have — Experience running events, community programmes, or investor days
- Nice to Have — Familiarity with tools such as Claude, Claude Code, Linear, Slack, or similar platforms
Why join
Most people who want to work in venture in Vancouver end up as an analyst, three layers from a decision, writing memos on companies someone else sourced. This is the opposite. You will be the person founders deal with. You design the curriculum, choose the mentors, decide who gets into the cohort, and run the room on demo day. That is a founder facing job with a network that compounds fast. Onni Capital invests its own capital. There is no fund clock and no external investment committee. If a studio company is working, we can keep backing it. If it is not, we can stop without a fund's optics driving the decision. The platform behind you is genuinely unusual for an incubator. Onni owns the real estate, operates businesses across development, construction, property management, and hospitality, and can put a startup's product in front of real operators in weeks. Studio graduates can become venture investments, and standout talent can move into portfolio companies or into Onni Capital. How We Work Onni Capital is being designed as a high ownership, low bureaucracy team. We work in small project groups, test ideas quickly, put early products in front of users, and make decisions based on evidence rather than hierarchy. Team members are expected to: • Challenge assumptions and communicate directly • Take responsibility for outcomes, not simply produce recommendations • Use modern AI tools to work faster and produce better results • Share unfinished work early and improve it through feedback • Move comfortably between strategic analysis and hands on execution • Know when to continue investing in an idea and when to stop • Operate effectively without a detailed playbook This is not a role for someone who wants months of consensus building, a rigid job description, or a narrowly defined set of responsibilities. It is for someone who learns quickly, takes initiative, enjoys solving ambiguous problems, and wants to help build something from the ground up. You will build a venture programme rather than join one. In a single cohort cycle, you may be involved in: • Deciding what the twelve week curriculum actually teaches • Choosing which twenty companies get in and which do not • Negotiating the equity terms with each of them • Introducing a founder to an Onni operator who becomes their first paying customer • Running demo day in front of investors and industry • Recommending a follow on cheque of ten times the studio investment • Bringing a studio graduate into a portfolio company as an operator • Deciding, honestly, whether the programme is working and what to change The expectation is high ownership. The studio is yours. Onni Capital is creating a new headquarters in downtown Vancouver designed for builders, founders, investors, product teams, and portfolio companies, not traditional corporate administration. The space is intended to become a home for company creation, collaboration, product demonstrations, investment discussions, founder events, and the broader Onni Capital community. Team members will receive: • Direct exposure to senior Onni executives, investors, operators, developers, and founders • The opportunity to help launch products and businesses from the ground up • Access to Onni's operating businesses, technology resources, real estate portfolio, and investment platform • Competitive compensation and a discretionary performance bonus • A comprehensive company paid benefits package • An annual education and professional development allowance • Regular product demonstrations, founder sessions, investment discussions, and team events • Free access to a fully equipped gym • Friends and family rates across participating hospitality brands • Employee discounts at participating restaurants, retailers, fitness providers, and other businesses • A generous employee referral program Onni For over half a century, Onni has been building communities for people to live, work, and play. Our success reflects our commitment to our employees and partners, and our dedication to quality construction, innovation, sustainability, and customer satisfaction. Our expertise expands across North America, with offices in Vancouver, Toronto, Los Angeles, Seattle, Phoenix, and Chicago. AI Use This role may involve the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support research, analysis, content development, design, reporting, or operational efficiency. Employees are expected to use AI responsibly and in compliance with company policies, data privacy requirements, confidentiality obligations, and applicable laws. All AI-generated or AI-assisted outputs must be reviewed for accuracy, quality, and appropriateness before use. Employees are also expected to disclose when AI tools have been used in the creation of work and must not present AI-generated content as solely their own original work.