Activate Fellow News: July 2026
August 3, 2026
Groundbreaking science doesn't reach the world on its own. It takes a leader willing to bridge science and business, and a community to support that leap.
This month, Activate Fellows continued proving what's possible: closing funding rounds, landing commercial partners, winning national recognition, and sharing their work with the world. Here's a look at what our community accomplished in July:
MAJOR FELLOW MILESTONES
- rStream (Ian Goodine & Ethan Walko, Cohort 2024) announced a partnership with Gillette Stadium to modernize waste management using rStream's AI-powered sorting system.
- EELI Technology (Mert Akin, Cohort 2024) has closed an oversubscribed $2M pre-seed round.
- Ecotune (Ella Csuka, Cohort 2026) has been selected as one of four awardees to the Product Accelerator for Functional Fabrics 3.0 by Advanced Functional Fabrics of America.
- Supercarb (Hitesh Manglani, Cohort 2024) launched the Chalk Up Tee, the first product built on Supercarb's Seaweed Tech fiber. In one week, the Kickstarter passed its $10K goal.
- Tandem PV (Colin Bailie & Chris Eberspacher, Cohort 2016) has collaborated with researchers at UC Merced to test the company’s solar panel durability on a larger scale.
FELLOW FUNDING
- Antora Energy (David Bierman, Cohort 2017, Andrew Ponec & Justin Briggs, Cohort 2018) has closed $550M in Series C funding to meet surging energy demand across industry, data centers, and the grid, as featured in Bloomberg.
- Every Electric (Andrew Wang & Richard May, Cohort 2024) has been awarded $25K in funding from Columbia Business School’s Tamer Fund for Social Ventures.
- FAST Metals (Sumedh Gostu, Cohort 2025) raised $4.3M in pre-seed funding and announced its first commercial customer, Metalox Mineral Corporation.
- LumiStrain (Wei Meng, Cohort 2024) has received a $1.55M NSF SBIR Fast-Track award.
FELLOW PARTNERSHIPS
- Following a recent $250K grant from REMADE Institute, REEgen (Alexa Schmitz, Cohort 2022) is now preparing to move forward on a new R&D partnership with RIT's Center for Innovation in Manufacturing and Sustainability.
- Tatta Bio (Andre Cornman & Yunha Hwang, Cohort 2024) is partnering with SeqCoast Genomics to support their customers' post-sequencing genomic analyses.
- Foray Bioscience (Ashley Beckwith, Cohort 2022) announced a collaboration with SilvaBio to accelerate the restoration of the American chestnut.
- SiTration (Brendan Smith, Cohort 2020) collaborated with BHP Invent and Copper South Australia to trial SiTration’s patented processing technology on local copper samples.
- Tyfast (GJ La O' & Haodong Liu, Cohort 2022) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with AIion Energy Systems to advance lithium vanadium oxide battery technology.
- florrent (Jose LaSalle, Cohort 2023) is now a launch partner of the Data Center Power Coalition.
- PumpKin (Justin Silpe, Cohort 2024) is partnering with Milkify Medical, and is now a founding company in the new New Jersey Innovation Hub at The HELIX.
- Takachar (Kevin Kung, Cohort 2018) joined the Rainbow Partner Program as part of the first cohort of approved pyrolysis partners.
FELLOW AWARDS
- Inlyte Energy (Antonio Baclig, Cohort 2021) has been selected for the 2026 Dominion Energy Innovation Center Accelerate cohort.
- KIRA Systems (Jon Bessette, Cohort 2025), PAGE Technologies (Elliot Strand & Payton Goodrich, Cohort 2025), and FAST Metals (Sumedh Gostu, Cohort 2025) have been selected to participate in the 2026 Mining Water Tech Pilot Pathway Program.
- Lagomics (Kia Kiaee & Yasamin Jodat, Cohort 2025) won Phase 1 of the The National Institutes of Health OligoTox Challenge.
- BioWraptor (Maeva Coste, Cohort 2025) won the Public Recognition Award of Out of the Lab 2026.
- Turnover Labs (Marissa Beatty, Cohort 2022) has been awarded grant funding and commercialization resources from Columbia's Carbontech Development Initiative.
- Vellex Computing (Palak Jain, Cohort 2023) and Netpreme (Zhizhen Zhong & Nikita Lazarev, Cohort 2025) have joined the NVIDIA Inception Program.
- Oleo (Gabi Dweck & Kelly Redmond, Cohort 2024) was awarded the Activate Planetary Health Green Ticket 2026 by MBC BioLabs.
FELLOW FEATURES
- Every Electric’s (Andrew Wang & Richard May, Cohort 2024) plug-in A/C powerbank program was spotlighted in Rewiring America. The company was also featured in articles by Canary Media, AP News, and The City Reporter.
- Charlie Childs (Intero Biosystems, Cohort 2025) and Blake Herren (Raven Space Systems, Cohort 2024) were featured in The Denver Post.
- SiTration (Brendan Smith, Cohort 2020) was included in an article by EnergyTech.
- Cameron Hill (LintrinsIC, Cohort 2021) participated in an executive interview with Microwave Journal.
- Anthro Energy (David Mackanic, Cohort 2021) was featured in the San Francisco Examiner article, “Alameda startup promises safer, longer-lasting batteries,” and Battery Power Online. U.S. Senator Alex Padilla also visited Anthro Energy’s HQ in Alameda, CA.
- Grace Akinyele (Mitovon Biosciences, Cohort 2026) was spotlighted in the Science Center article, “Preserving What Powers Us: How Grace Akinyele Built Mitovon Biosciences.”
- PumpKin (Justin Silpe, Cohort 2024) launched a new paid research study and is looking for pumping parents to participate.
- Brint Tech (Kathy Andersen, Cohort 2026), Anning Corporation (Sophie Broun, Cohort 2026), and Hydrify (Yashee Mathur, Cohort 2026) were featured in the Heatmap article, “The Next Big Thing in Hydrogen.”
- Novel Farms (Michelle Lu & Nieves Martinez Marshall, Cohort 2023) was featured in Top Tier Impact's map of startups shaping the future of food. The company was also recognized by InsightAce Veterinary & Animal Health as one of the leading companies in the cultivated and precision-fermented pet protein space.
- Scott Schiffres (ChipAdd, Cohort 2025) was featured in the BingUNews article, “From idea to startup: Entrepreneurial spirit drives Watson College faculty.”
- FAST Metals (Sumedh Gostu, Cohort 2025) was highlighted in “Turning Toxic Waste Into Critical Metals: How FAST Metals Found Its Footing in Connecticut” by Yale Ventures.
- Vernon Lalone (Wave Lumina, Cohort 2025) was included in the Grist article, “New research traces how ‘forever chemicals’ move through the Great Lakes and into people.”
- Yasmeen Alfaraj (NextSet Materials, Cohort 2025) was featured in Interesting Engineering.
FELLOW APPEARANCES
- Alexa Schmitz (REEgen, Cohort 2022) was interviewed on the Rare Earth Exchanges Podcast.
- Ashley Beckwith (Foray Bioscience, Cohort 2022) spoke on an episode of The Lantern.
- Becca Segel (FlowCellutions, Cohort 2025) joined an episode of the Thought Liters series.
- Fatma Kaplan (Pheronym, Cohort 2021) was a guest on the Women Innovators in Food and Farming podcast.
- Garrett Boudinot (Vycarb, Cohort 2022) joined the Oil and Gas Global Network podcast.
- Kevin Kung (Takachar, Cohort 2018) was featured on the Roots of Change podcast.
- Nili Persits (Dottir Labs, Cohort 2023) was featured in an episode of the WCS Talks Unplugged podcast.
- Pauliina Meskanen (Calectra, Cohort 2024) presented at the National Lime Association's 2026 Annual Meeting in Carlsbad, CA.
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