Activate Updates: October 2023

Activate Updates

Oct 30

Written By Leanna Yu

This Month's Features

Two New Managing Directors Mentor Fellows and Nurture Ecosystems
Experiencing Climate Solutions in New York City

Plus

Activate Fellow wins
Ecosystem news
Job opportunities

Two New Managing Directors Mentor Fellows and Nurture Ecosystems

Activate recently welcomed Jeremy Pitts, the first-ever managing director of the Activate Houston Community, and Andrés Ochoa C., the new managing director of the Activate Anywhere Community. Jeremy is the co-founder of Greentown Labs and a veteran of multiple energy-related startups, and Andrés comes from Meta with multiple prior experiences as a founder. Most importantly, like all of Activate’s MDs, they each have been in the fellows’ shoes.

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“Mountains of Opportunity”—And Other Takeaways from Climate Week NYC

One of our favorite moments from this year’s Climate Week NYC happened during Activate’s fireside chat between ARPA-E director Evelyn Wang and climate solutions storyteller Molly Wood. Wang reframed the so-called “valley of death”—the infamous gap where newly commercialized technologies meet their demise—as “mountains of opportunity,” recognizing the tremendous potential that lies in closing critical gaps and getting promising technologies to scale.

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Three Activate Fellow-founded companies were named on MIT Technology Review's 2023 list of 15 Climate-Tech Companies to Watch: Twelve (Etosha Cave and Kendra Kuhl, Cohort 2015), Sublime Systems (Leah Ellis, Cohort 2020), and Fervo Energy (Tim Latimer and Jack Norbeck, Cohort 2018). This list recognizes companies that have "a promising shot at substantially cutting emissions or counteracting the dangers of climate change, based on the innovations they’ve achieved, their track records in implementing solutions, or both."

Jose LaSalle (florrent, Cohort 2023) was featured in a MassVentures article that describes how LaSalle’s background led his academic focus on energy storage and ulracapacitors and how florrent sources hemp from Black and Indigenous farmers in the United States to create carbon-sequestering ultracapacitors.

Peter Godart (Found Energy, Cohort 2022) and David Mackanic (Anthro, Cohort 2021) were named on MIT Technology Review's list of 35 Innovators Under 35. This list recognizes young people driving the next wave of innovation.

Arbon (Elvis Cao and Yang Shi, Cohort 2023), Banyu Carbon (Alex Gagnon and Julian Sachs, Cohort 2023), and Vycarb (Garrett Boudinot, Cohort 2022) were awarded a total of $700K in carbon removal purchases by Frontier, an advance market commitment, on behalf of buyers Stripe, Shopify, and H&M Group.

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

On November 1-2, Greentown Labs is hosting its annual Climatetech Summit. In-person in Houston on November 1 and both in-person in Boston and via livestream on November 2, this summit will include keynotes and sessions featuring leaders across climate tech, finance, policy, and justice; and networking with key climate-action pioneers.
On November 7, the Investor Corporate Customer Connect will convene in Boston to accelerate commercialization for clean-tech and climate-tech startups by offering one-on-one connections with aligned investors and customers.
The oSTEM Conference will take place from November 9-12 in Anaheim, CA, with 1K+ LGBTQ+ students, professionals, and recruiters in STEM fields from across the country and around the globe. Programs and content range from introspective (e.g., safer spaces to talk about queer issues and career development) to technical (e.g., discussing the latest in research conducted by oSTEM members).
MaRS Climate Impact will take place on November 29-30 in Toronto featuring interactive panel discussions, thought-provoking debates, and company demos with innovators and global clean-tech leaders working on the platforms, partnerships, and strategies needed to scale the most impactful solutions.

Relevant Opportunities

The California Test Bed (CalTestBed) Initiative provides entrepreneurs with vouchers worth up to $300K for third-party testing of their technologies at one of more than 70 testbeds across Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and eight University of California campuses. Since 2019, CalTestBed has supported three cohorts of 56 companies driving innovation in the global clean-energy economy. Applications close November 22.
The Industry Growth Forum (IGF) provides startups the opportunity to receive feedback and build business strategies, gain priority access to schedule 1:1 meetings with investors, and get plugged into the National Renewable Energy Laboratory ecosystem. 2024 IGF will be held on May 1-3 in Denver. Apply to present your solution by December 4.

Activate Voices

Brimstone (Cody Finke, Cohort 2019) and Antora Energy (David Bierman, Cohort 2017, Justin Briggs, and Andrew Ponec, Cohort 2018) were recognized on TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023 list.
HolonIQ named 11 Activate Fellow companies on its Climate Tech 200 list: Anthro (David Mackinac, Cohort 2021), Antora Energy (David Bierman, Cohort 2017, Justin Briggs, and Andrew Ponec, Cohort 2018), Brimstone (Cody Finke, Cohort 2019), CalWave (Marcus Lehmann, Cohort 2015), Fervo Energy (Tim Latimer and Jack Norbeck, Cohort 2018), Gradient (Vince Romanin, Cohort 2017), Nitricity (Joshua McEnaney and Jay Schwalbe, Cohort 2020), Noon Energy (Chris Graves, Cohort 2018), Still Bright (Jon Vardner, Cohort 2022), Twelve (Etosha Cave and Kendra Kuhl, Cohort 2015), and Zanskar (Joel Edwards and Carl Hoiland, Cohort 2020).
Drew Lilley (Calion Technologies, Cohort 2023), Michelle Lu, and Nieves Martinez Marshall (Novel Farms, Cohort 2023) were awarded the Breakthrough Energy fellowship.
Inlyte Energy (Antonio Baclig, Cohort 2021) was ranked number 13 on Cleantech Group’s 2023 Cleantech 50toWatch list.
Fervo Energy (Tim Latimer and Jack Norbeck, Cohort 2018), Sublime Systems (Leah Ellis, Cohort 2020), and Twelve (Etosha Cave and Kendra Kuhl, Cohort 2015) were named on MIT Technology Review’s inaugural 15 ClimateTech Companies to Watch list.
Cody Finke (Brimstone, Cohort 2019) and Sam Calisch (Elmworks, Cohort 2020) were recognized on the 2023 Grist 50 Fixers list.
Floris Engelhardt (Kano Therapeutics, Cohort 2020) was interviewed by BioTechTV about how her company Kano is trying to use circular single-stranded DNA to correct gene-length stretches of the genome.
METAseismic (Noemi Bonessio, Cohort 2020) received seismic certification for immersion cooling systems, which means that its seismic protection pads can enable IT liquid immersion cooling systems to sustain the highest levels of seismic vibrations.
Novel Farms (Nieves Martinez Marshall and Michelle Lu, Cohort 2023) announced that it was awarded a $1M SBIR grant to support its platform, which leverages a novel microbial fermentation approach and tissue engineering techniques to significantly reduce the costs associated with cultivated meat.
Osmoses (Francesco Benedetti and Holden Lai, Cohort 2021) announced the close of an $11M seed round, which will enable the company to bring its molecule-scale membranes to the hydrogen market.
Thalo Labs (Brendan Hermalyn, Cohort 2020) was named in an article about innovators working on direct air capture by Reuters, which described Thalo’s devices that capture carbon from indoor air or from the flue exhausts of boilers and furnaces.

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