Paul Kirby

Paul Kirby is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Zinc, a London-based platform that backs and builds Science-for-Impact ventures. Zinc’s current public positioning is focused on unlocking science and deep technology to address major health and environmental challenges, with investment and venture-building support from the earliest stages through seed.

Before Zinc, Kirby was a partner at KPMG and global head of public services and government. Zinc’s team profile also states that he was Head of the Number 10 Policy Unit, worked across media, education, transport and urban regeneration, served as a Director of Bethnal Green Ventures, and was a Non-Executive Director of the Cabinet Office.

Kirby is also listed by Zinc as a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics & Political Science. In a January 2026 Zinc article co-authored with Ella Goldner, he described Zinc’s model as a three-pillar platform spanning Investment, Zinc Innovation Partners, and Inflection, intended to help science, talent and capital translate into measurable real-world impact.

• Zinc’s stated investment thesis is to back “innovators leveraging science and deep technology” to solve valuable, pressing problems in health and the environment.
• Kirby and Zinc focus on the earliest and riskiest stage of venture creation, described by Zinc as “from start to seed,” where teams are still validating the problem, de-risking science and technology, developing IP, and forming the commercial proposition.
• Zinc says it backs exceptional entrepreneurs building Science-for-Impact ventures in the UK, with hands-on venture-building support across human capital, intellectual capital, social capital and financial capital.
• Zinc looks for ventures with strong IP, science or technology foundations that can be protected, productised and de-risked.
• Sector priorities include biotechnology, drug development, biomanufacturing, diagnostics, medtech, AI-enabled healthcare delivery, life-sciences tools, energy, industrial decarbonisation, sustainable agriculture and food technologies, circular economy, climate adaptation, water technologies, carbon capture and biodiversity tech.
• Kirby and Ella Goldner wrote in 2026 that Zinc is “not a traditional venture capital firm” but a Science-for-Impact institution operating across investment, innovation and career inflection.