Activate Updates: July 2023

Activate Updates

Jul 27

Written By Leanna Yu

This Month's Features

How to really invest in founders’ success
Introducing Dan Recht, Managing Director, Activate Boston

Plus

Activate Fellow wins
Ecosystem news
Job opportunities

How to really invest in founders’ success

The Journey to Well-Being: A Series on Mental Health and the Unique Demands of Entrepreneurship

The founder-investor relationship can and should be one of support and openness. What’s more, making it a more open, healthy relationship can pay both financial and emotional dividends. For that to happen, however, investors need to change the narrative.

Read On

Meet Dan Recht, Activate Boston’s New Managing Director

Dan Recht is passionate about nurturing people and cutting-edge technology. We are excited to welcome him as managing director of the Activate Boston Community, where he will use his technical and business expertise to mentor fellows. “As a hard-tech CEO, Dan navigated so many of the challenges that face his fellows daily,” says Activate executive managing director Aimee Rose. “He also brings later-stage growth experiences that will help his fellows see around corners.”

Meet Dan

Co-founded by David Bierman (Cohort 2017, Cyclotron Road), Justin Briggs (Cohort 2018, Cyclotron Road), and Andrew Ponec (Cohort 2018, Cyclotron Road), Antora Energy uses carbon to store energy from renewable sources and provide it on-demand to power heavy industry. In this Stand Together video, see how Antora’s technology works and learn more about how the company is working with policymakers at every level to inform the future of the energy transition.

Co-founded by Leah Ellis (Cohort 2020), Sublime Systems is reshaping the construction industry with its groundbreaking electrochemical approach to cement manufacturing. CNBC and Boston Globe recently featured Ellis, including what led her to apply her chemistry background to decarbonizing cement production and how Sublime Systems is scaling its product.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee (second from left) speaks at the groundbreaking in Moses Lake with Twelve co-founders (L-R) Etosha Cave, Chief Science Officer; Nicholas Flanders, Chief Executive Officer; and Kendra Kuhl, Chief Technology Officer. (Photo: Business Wire)

This month, Twelve, co-founded by Etosha Cave and Kendra Kuhl (Cohort 2015, Cyclotron Road), broke ground on its commercial sustainable aviation fuel production facility in Washington State. With Alaska Airlines, Microsoft, and Shopify as its first customers, Twelve will provide its trademarked E-Jet fuel, which works with existing aircraft and airport infrastructure. The project will bring about 200 jobs to the area during construction and even more permanent, clean-energy jobs once the facility is operational in mid-2024.

This month, two Activate Fellow companies reached major demonstration milestones. Brimstone, co-founded by Cody Finke (Cohort 2019, Cyclotron Road), received third-party certification that its low-carbon cement meets or exceeds standards for ordinary Portland cement, validating its identical performance, safety, and composition to cement produced through the conventional, carbon-intensive process. In another landmark step, Fervo Energy, co-founded by Tim Latimer and Jack Norbeck (Cohort 2018, Cyclotron Road), completed a performance demonstration of its commercial geothermal pilot that showed how enhanced geothermal systems can work at the commercial scale.

We’re kicking off recruitment for Cohort 2024! Learn more about the application process and hear from current and alumni fellows about how the Activate Fellowship enabled them to begin their entrepreneurial journeys. Register for a fellow panel and Q&A on August 2 and view the full calendar of upcoming recruitment webinars.

Our team is always on the lookout for talented scientists and engineers interested in making an impact with their technologies and our community members—you!—are often the best scouts for these incredible individuals. Nominate a fellow for Cohort 2024, and we can connect them to additional resources, help them build a strong application, and ensure they’ll be the first to know about any upcoming events or deadlines.

Track our fellows' progress in real-time on our social media feeds.

IN OUR ECOSYSTEM
Upcoming events, relevant opportunities, and what we're reading.

Upcoming Events

Activate will be taking part in the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) Virtual Career Fair on August 24 from 1-4 pm ET. This free event will connect women in science with employers seeking top talent.
The Rice Alliance will host the Energy Tech Venture Forum on September 21 in Houston, featuring keynotes, panels, networking sessions, private investor meetings, and pitches from 40 emerging and successful energy ventures.
The SOSV Climate Tech Summit on September 26-27 aims to convene the climate-tech startup ecosystem of founders, investors, technologists, corporates, policymakers, and media to discuss the extreme challenges ahead. Register for this live, virtual, and free event featuring panels and breakout sessions with the founders and venture capitalists who are inventing our decarbonized future.
Carbon Unbound—a two-day, in-person summit that brings together carbon dioxide removal leaders to accelerate innovation, investment, and collaboration in the sector—will host its first European edition in London on October 3-4.

Relevant Opportunities

Eighteen150 provides $150K, full immigration support, and employment for solo immigrant founders to explore their ideas while on a visa in the United States. Applications close on August 27.
The Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge is a world-renowned competition designed to unearth early-stage startups that are developing cutting-edge, hard-tech innovations to tackle worldwide challenges. Selected participants will have the chance to win equity-free prize money of up to €100K, customized coaching sessions, and personal introductions with investors and corporates. Applications are due September 22.
The Direct Air Capture (DAC) Pre-Commercial Technology Prize awards up to $3.2M in cash prizes and $800K in technical assistance vouchers to teams that identify a critical need in the DAC industry, develop a solution to address this gap, and test the idea to a degree of scale. Submissions are due September 26.
The American-Made Solar Prize Round 7 is a $4.2M prize competition designed to energize U.S. solar innovation through a series of contests that accelerate the entrepreneurial process from years to months. Submissions are due September 27.

Activate Voices

Cella, co-founded by Claire Nelson (Cohort 2023), closed its $3.3M Seed funding round led by Counteract and the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment. With this funding, Cella plans to develop a DAC plant in Kenya’s Rift Valley, the first in the Southern Hemisphere.
Bringing new innovation to a longtime industrial center in West Oakland, Activate Fellow companies Limelight Steel (Olivia Dippo and Andy Zhao, Cohort 2022) and ReSource (Aanindeeta Bannerjee, Cohort 2020, Cyclotron Road) have set up shop in the former American Steel complex.
Cheri Ackerman (Cohort 2020) was a guest on the Tough Tech Today podcast, discussing Concerto Bio and its kChip, as well as how the company's technology works to combat skin microbiome concerns, including eczema and recurrant yeast infections.
MIT News featured Deepak Dugar (Cohort 2015, Cyclotron Road, Visolis Bio) describing the path from concept to marketplace for carbon-negative materials to replace petroleum-based products from tires to yoga pants. Additionally, Visolis’ carbon-negative skincare line, Ameva Bio, features mevalonic acid-based creams made from recycled plant byproducts created in other processes.

Want us to highlight an upcoming event or relevant opportunity in next month's newsletter? Let us know.

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