Company & market background

FaunaPhotonics aims to build an industry-leading Biodiversity Measurement, Reporting and Verification  Platform (MRV), supported by AI-driven analytics and an affordable and easy-to-use field sensor technology. FaunaPhotonics is a Danish company at the forefront of developing a robust, scalable, field sensing technology that employs the power of AI in a pressing biodiversity measurement and reporting environment for large enterprises. It is one of the only biodiversity solutions that provides unbiased, continuous and temporal monitoring of the health and quality of natural ecosystems using insects as a proxy for overall biodiversity.  The temporal nature of its solution allows the company to measure change over time in the biodiversity of natural ecosystems, a requirement by third-party biodiversity auditors.

The company’s dedication to developing continuous insect monitoring technology, powered by patent-protected sensor techniques and advanced machine learning algorithms, addresses critical knowledge gaps in understanding insect activities and is the world’s first end-to-end, continuous insect monitoring solution.

Insects are the only part of the animal kingdom that exist everywhere on land and are at the bottom of the food chain making them the ideal indicator for overall natural ecosystem diversity, health and quality.  We have lost over 40% of all species (flora & fauna) on the planet since 1970.  Current extinction rates are 100X higher than any other mass extinction event in the Earth’s history. Over half of the world’s GDP (€ 58T) depends on nature.  There is no economy without nature.  Biodiversity is rapidly becoming a license to operate and is a marketplace expected to grow at over 50% CAGR.  Biodiversity is expected to be larger than carbon, which is > € 1T market today, and to materialize much faster.

A new management team was put in place in 2022-23 and has since refocused the business entirely on biodiversity.  In that period until today, the company has been solely focused on building a scalable, industry-leading biodiversity platform driven by a SaaS-like, data subscription business model.

The biodiversity business leverages years of research on the wingbeat frequencies of insects.  The current, eVolito field sensing technology (right) measures the disturbances to the Earth’s electric field made by insect wingbeats.  It uses this data to produce four simple biodiversity measures including insect abundance, activity, diversity or diversity or evenness, and biomass, which is an estimate of the food available for the ecosystem.  Moreover, the biodiversity business leverages several patent families and provides solid IP protection. The company’s vision is to let nature do its work to provide a better world for all by reporting and monitoring biodiversity.  Its purpose or mission is to make biodiversity simple and measurable.  These are supported by the company’s values, which include transparency, authenticity, simplicity and clarity of communication and acting with the utmost integrity.

FaunaPhotonics offers a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) to customers, including:

• Temporal continuous insect and biodiversity monitoring (insect abundance, activity, diversity and an estimate of biomass)

• Baseline assessments

• Benchmarking of best practices

• Over time, actionable insights that incorporate inputs from other relevant data sets and monitoring technologies.  FaunaPhotonics’ goal is to be a platform that integrates other monitoring tech (satellite, acoustic, optical, and more) and data sets (flora, bird, bats, mammals, weather, pollution, and more)

• Biodiversity reporting to relevant standards, which in the short run will include CSRD (ESRS E4), TNFD and potentially SBTN.

FaunaPhotonics has developed a clustering algorithm which is highly correlated with the Simpson and Shannon indices to determine the evenness of groups of insects with similar wingbeat profiles and other attributes.  eDNA services have proven to be labour intensive (field sampling), not timely (long wait for lab results), not effective in arid environments, misleading due to residual DNA from species that may not have been present for months-years and are deeply biased by sampling techniques and intervals.  FaunaPhotonics continuously monitors insect populations every day, all day, under all environmental and climatic conditions.  It is completely unbiased.  Moreover, it has the potential, over time, to normalize for effects like weather, which have an important influence on the activity of insects and overall natural ecosystem biodiversity.

Thus, the company’s novel insect biodiversity index algorithms allow for objective, unbiased comparisons for different locations. The tools can support businesses taking action to mitigate and reduce the loss of biodiversity by delivering data and quantifiable measures that document positive change. Additionally, species-specific insect activity data combined with time, geolocation and environmental data are an input to digital environmental management solutions, including regenerative agriculture.  Customers will be able to track the performance of their interventions to their biodiversity impacts. In the future, the AI-driven analytics platform will become predictive in its nature to suggest specific interventions to support desired biodiversity outcomes and strategies.

The advantages of using digital insect monitoring include:

• Being non-invasive: No insects are attracted to the sensors or killed.

• Being cost efficient: No experts are required in the field or lab.

• Continuous sensor monitoring generates 5-80x more data than traditional methods at 5x less cost and access to hourly insect data.

• End-to-end automation of the solution and customer experience through a customer portal with an API for customers to consume data.

• Temporal unbiased data that allows for comparative analyses of biodiversity change and is accepted by auditors including KPMG, EY and Deloitte.

• Using edge computing techniques to increasingly monitor remote areas.

FaunaPhotonics timing to enter the biodiversity market as a leading biodiversity MRV platform is perfect.  Due to new EU directives, global enterprises are rushing to figure out their exposures to nature loss and are being pressured to mitigate these associated risks in a very short period of time.

The role and responsibilities

The Head of Business Development will need to be customer-focused and results-driven with an attention to building relationships and closing sales with large enterprises primarily residing or operating in EU markets. Attention also needs to be paid to managing the company’s cash flow, as well as to meeting and exceeding sales targets across 5 core customer and partner segments.

The company’s focus is to build the sales and marketing organization; position the business for growth in key markets and customer segments; drive account renewals and new sales with large, multinational enterprises; and identify strategic channel partnerships for further growth and market penetration. This requires a strategic approach to business development, marketing and sales and exceptional communication and team-building skills.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement business development and go-to-market strategies to achieve the company’s goals and position the business for future growth.

• Design and implement processes and performance metrics (KPIs) to support business development, sales and marketing activities. Initiate a marketing strategy to support business development and sales activities.

• Identify new business opportunities, strategic channel relationships, and large, enterprise customers and develop tailored value propositions. Negotiate contracts and close deals.

• Build and execute customer retention and account expansion strategies.

• Build long-term relationships with clients, partners and stakeholders.

• Collaborate with internal teams, including marketing, product, and operations to execute customer-focused solutions.

• Monitor industry and policy trends and competitor activities to inform business development strategies.

• Provide regular reports on business development activities and performance metrics (KPIs).

• Design and deliver annual business development budgets. Effectively manage cash flow and budget targets.

Professional experience / qualifications

In summary, the ideal Head of Business Development will have:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in business and/or marketing.

• 5+ years of experience selling to large enterprises.

• Proven experience in business development, sales or a similar role.

• Strong track record driving revenue growth and expanding market presence.

• Exceptional communication, negotiation and interpersonal skills.

• Strategic thinking and ability to develop and execute successful growth strategies.

• Proficiency in CRM tools and other business development and forecasting software.

• Ability to work in a fast-paced and collaborative team environment.

• A commitment to a customer-driven vision for business development and sales.

• Planning, organization, and problem-solving skills.  Advanced time management skills.

• Ability to work comfortably in a fast-paced, start-up environment that requires flexibility to initiate and manage multiple tasks in a lean-resource environment.

• Strong ability to balance persuasion with professionalism.

• Entrepreneurial and growth mindset.  Motivation to learn and grow every day.

FaunaPhotonics is an early-stage biodiversity monitoring & reporting business. The head of business development will build the sales & marketing organization; position the business for growth; drive account renewals & new sales with multinational enterprises; and develop strategic channel partners