Activate Updates: November 2024
Applications for Cohort 2025 closed on October 30 and we received a record number of nearly 1,200 applicants.
Additionally, our fellows surpassed another impressive milestone—$3.5B in collective follow-on funding—and we welcomed two new board members to continue expanding our impact (more about them below!).
We’re also sharing new data-driven insights from two years of Activate Anywhere, our virtual community of fellows, which is providing a blueprint for harnessing virtual collaboration to solve the world's biggest challenges.
Read on for more opportunities and news from the science entrepreneurship community.
Activate Fellows Hit a $3.5B Funding Milestone
Activate Fellows have reached a major milestone! We recently announced that fellows have secured a massive $3.5B in cumulative funding, including over $2B in just the past year. Congrats to all the fellows who are advancing hard-tech solutions across a wide array of categories, from climate tech to advanced manufacturing and more.
Welcome to Our New Board Members: Alex Dehgan and Nitesh Sharan
As Activate continues to grow, we welcome two new board members: Dr. Alex Dehgan and Nitesh Sharan. They each bring a deeply mission-oriented ethos, as well as enormous expertise in establishing and building companies worldwide.
Activate Anywhere: A Blueprint for Virtual Collaboration
Innovation doesn’t have to be confined to traditional hubs, and now we have the data to back it up. Over the last two years, companies in the Activate Anywhere Community from Cohorts 2022 and 2023 have raised $56M in total and brought on 110 new employees. Managing Director Andrés Ochoa shares lessons learned from the first two years of Activate Anywhere.
“When we launched Activate Anywhere, we had a bold vision to create a virtual community that would empower scientists and engineers to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges,” Ochoa said, “No matter where they were located.”
Visolis Secures $2.25M in Funding
We’re excited to celebrate that Visolis (Deepak Dugar, Cohort 2015, Cyclotron Road) has secured $2.25M in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense! This investment will support the planning of a new facility to produce a key chemical used in rocket propellants and sustainable aviation fuel. The milestone is a huge step forward for Visolis as they continue to innovate in manufacturing high-performance, carbon-negative materials with synthetic biology.
Last month, Activate CEO Cyrus Wadia headlined the VERGE 24 climate-tech conference, taking the stage alongside Vanessa Chan, Director of the Office of Technology Transition at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and journalist Molly Wood to discuss scaling innovations to meet the urgency of the climate crisis.
Watch the full talk.
Activate Fellows, along with Activate Director of Investments Calvin Culpini, joined the action-packed Tough Tech Week presented by JPMorgan Innovation Economy, connecting with over 3,000 innovators, nearly 300 VCs and investors, and key policy leaders across 26 events in Boston and Cambridge to drive solutions for society's toughest challenges.
TechCrunch featured Raven Space Systems (Blake Herren, Cohort 2024) and its $2M pre-seed funding success. The piece highlights the new process they developed for enabling the first scalable 3D printing of commercial, off-the-shelf thermoset composite components. “We’re essentially unlocking an entire field of 3D printing to production scale,” Herren says.
In Our Ecosystem
Upcoming events, relevant opportunities, and what we're reading.
Upcoming Opportunities
The Inflection Award recognizes the top 30 Ph.D.s working on solutions to climate change. Awardees will be honored at an exclusive event in Paris, engage in a world-class bootcamp, and gain access to exceptional career opportunities. Applications close on December 1.
Eligible DOE award recipients are invited to showcase their technologies, projects, or services at Deploy24's The Exchange at the Atrium on December 4-5 in Washington, DC—a unique opportunity to connect with government, industry, and investors.
Battery innovators and startups are invited to apply for Cohort 2 of the six-month-long NENY ChargeUp Accelerator, which includes a $25K stipend, investor connections, and opportunities for follow-on funding up to $100K. Apply by January 15, 2025.
The Temasek Foundation's eighth annual Livability Challenge, Asia’s biggest sustainability innovation challenge, offers $2M in prizes, with $1M awards for two grand winners, to innovators with deep-tech decarbonization solutions. Submit a proposal by February 9, 2025.
Applications for the 2024 Cleantech Open Accelerator are now open and will be accepted on a rolling basis through April 14, 2025. The accelerator provides expert mentors, investor networking opportunities, industry connections, and a chance to compete regionally and nationally for cash prizes and in-kind services.
Funded by the California Energy Commission's EPIC program, CalSEED works to advance clean-energy concepts to commercial readiness by providing funding and professional development assistance. CalSEED seeks applications from individuals, businesses, and nonprofits that are working on early-stage innovations—from concept to basic prototype. Applications will be open from April 15-28, 2025.
The Urban Future Prize Competition aims to find the brightest climate-tech startups with the most promising solutions to climate change. They will award two winners with $50K cash prizes and bring them into the coveted ACRE Incubator. Applications are open now through May 1, 2025.
The Biomimicry Institute’s Ray of Hope Accelerator provides $15K in non-dilutive funding and over $50K in in-kind services, including tailored coaching, investor introductions, a four-day nature retreat, and comprehensive training materials. Applications close May 3, 2025.
Fellows in the News
Fervo Energy’s (Jack Norbeck & Tim Latimer, Cohort 2018, Cyclotron Road) FervoFlex geothermal technology was named one of the Best Inventions of 2024 by TIME.
Electrified Thermal Solutions (Joey Kabel & Dan Stack, Cohort 2021) is among 11 selectees for the DOE Office of Electricity’s energy storage technical assistance voucher program that will support innovations in long-duration energy storage technologies.
Spark Thermionics (Jared Schwede, Cohort 2015, Cyclotron Road) and Antora Energy (David Bierman, Cohort 2017, Justin Briggs & Andrew Ponec, Cohort 2018, Cyclotron Road) are among 14 industry partners teaming up with U.S. Space Force to execute “one of the nation’s largest efforts to advance space power and propulsion, a critical need for national defense and space exploration.”
Princeton University awarded its Tiger Entrepreneur Award to Justin Silpe (PumpKin, Cohort 2024), who developed technology to extend the shelf life of human breastmilk as a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton.
Liminal Insights (Andrew Hsieh, Cohort 2015), a battery manufacturing intelligence company, is raising up to $15M in new funding.
Pascal (Jinyoung Seo & Adam Slavney, Cohort 2023) was featured as one of Chemical and Engineering News’ 10 Startups to Watch in 2024.
Pheronym (Fatma Kaplan & Cameron Schiller, Cohort 2021, Cyclotron Road) and Elateq (Lily Rajic, Cohort 2024) are featured as On Our Radar startups by Chemical and Engineering News.
Want us to highlight an upcoming event or relevant opportunity in next month's newsletter? Let us know.
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