Over Five Billion Reasons to Believe: Our 2025 Annual Impact Report

Activate exists to discover, fund, and champion scientists and engineers whose innovations can benefit society—and to ensure they have a real path to impact. We provide the funding, mentorship, and ecosystem support that transforms breakthrough science into real-world ventures.

$5.5B in follow-on funding. And counting.

In 2025, Activate fellows crossed $5 billion in follow-on funding—proof that transformational science can make it across the gap between discovery and real-world impact. We are thrilled to share that just this week, Activate's total follow-on funding has passed $5.5 billion. This milestone, reached just months into 2026, is a powerful signal that the work we celebrated in our annual impact report is already compounding. Here's what a decade of hard work looks like.

235+ ventures launched. ~300 Fellows & Alumni. 10 years of scientist-first investing.

The number is big. The story behind it is bigger. Over $5 billion dollars in follow-on funding isn't just a number—it's nearly 300 scientist-leaders reaching milestones that once seemed impossible, and an organization that has grown to meet them at every stage. It's what happens when you invest early in the right people, and build the ecosystem to carry them forward.

But as our CEO says: the funding milestone is the most visible part. Beneath it are thousands of hard decisions, countless experiments, and uncomfortable pivots. That is the story of Activate.

The problem: Brilliant science, stuck in the lab.
The academic path doesn't train scientists to be entrepreneurs. Venture capital overlooks hard tech's longer timelines. For decades, world-changing discoveries have stalled in the gap between breakthrough and impact.

Our answer: A full ecosystem-not just a fellowship.
Stipends, business training, founder mentorship, and community. Plus alumni networks, non-venture pathways, and partnerships with government, philanthropy, and industry to create systemic support at every stage.

Activate exists because the hardest part comes before the milestones. We're here to do what markets and institutions reliably underserve: invest early in people who are trying to move frontier science into the world—when it's too soon to price the risk, and too easy to walk away.

Lasting scientific progress depends on investing in the scientist as much as the science. We meet scientists at decisive moments, extend support across critical stages, and build the networks that surround them. Scaling community—fellows learning from each other, mentors showing up at the right time, funders enabling patience—is the deeper engine of everything we do.

Year ten is a beginning, not a finish line.

In 2025, we launched our first international program, built alternative pathways for scientists at key stages, and introduced tools to better understand growth in leadership. We're building toward a future where transformative technologies rise to meet the urgency of global challenges—for people and the planet.

When we close the gap between science and entrepreneurship, transformative change becomes possible.

So let us celebrate the funding milestones—and remember the thousands of hard decisions, countless experiments, and the steady evolution of scientists into leaders that made them possible.

Science that shapes the future.

Our annual impact report introduces you to the people behind the innovations that will change what our future looks like for the better.

These are the faces, brilliant ideas, and hard work behind this incredible milestone.

This past year, Activate fellows and alumni didn't just make progress—they made history. Across cohorts and technology verticals, breakthroughs are compounding: first pilots becoming market leaders, emerging teams reaching global scale, and science that once lived only in labs now reshaping industries.

Meet the 45 fellows of Cohort 2025—representing 29 cities and 9 states—bringing bold thinking and technical excellence to the next chapter of hard tech.

And discover which Activate companies and fellows have been making headlines—from TIME's Top GreenTech Companies to Forbes' 30 Under 30 and beyond.

Read the report to see how a decade of investment in scientist-leaders is accelerating hard tech for good.