Activate

Eager to work with scientists shaping the world? See the latest jobs of the week from Activate Fellow companies! 🔔 Sales Development Representative at Pulsenics Inc (Toronto, Ontario) Staff Firmware Engineer at Gradient (San Francisco, CA)  Wafer Fabrication Technician at PseudolithIC (Santa Barbara, CA) Principal Program Manager - Electrolyte Production Facility at Anthro (Alameda, CA) Director of Engineering at Aepnus Technology (Oakland, CA)  Senior Research Scientist at Aepnus Technology (Oakland, CA)  Machine Learning Scientist at Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals, Inc. (Salt Lake City, UT) Dev Ops Engineer at Pulsenics Inc (Toronto, Ontario) Corporate Paralegal at Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals, Inc. (Salt Lake City, UT) Communications Coordinator at Fervo Energy (Houston, TX)  Process Engineer at Limelight Steel (Oakland, CA) 📢 Share this post to help us connect our fellows with top talent! 🌍#ClimateTech 🌱#GreenJobs 💼#Hiring

With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), we launched Activate Anywhere. Now, Fellows all around the country are bringing their leading-edge ideas to agriculture, satellite imagery, semiconductors, carbon removal, rocket engines, quantum computing, and more. We look forward to continuing this partnership with NSF and supporting even more innovators around the U.S.!

The collective founder communities between Activate and The Engine Accelerator are working on some of the hardest problems in the world, and many entrepreneurs in the Activate world have already worked with The Engine in some way. By formalizing this partnership, we’re excited to extend the collaboration – and benefits – even further.

At this year’s Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship annual cleantech summit, our CEO, Cyrus Wadia, sat down to have a fireside chat with Katie Fehrenbacher of Axios.   During Cyrus conversation, he notes that successful entrepreneurs hone three essential traits: 1️⃣ Comfort with Failure – Entrepreneurship is inherently risky. The question isn’t “Will I fail?” but rather, “How can I learn from it?” 2️⃣ Comfort with Pivoting – Sometimes the path you start on isn’t the one you finish. The most successful founders are those who can pivot effectively when new challenges arise. 3️⃣ A Learning Mindset – Accepting the objective truth, even when it’s hard, and staying open to learning fuels growth and progress. These lessons are critical for entrepreneurs at the forefront of innovation. Because when you're solving world-changing problems, adaptability isn't optional—it's essential. Which of these traits has shaped your own entrepreneurial journey? Activate’s fellows hone these traits while advancing their journey towards successful entrepreneurship in the fellowship. During the event, Activate Fellow companies Oleo Sustainable Palm Oil Solutions (Gabriella Dwek & Kelly Redmond, Cohort 2024), and Calectra (Nate Weger & Pauliina Meskanen, Cohort 2024), showcased their innovations and the impact of their technology along with Noon Energy (Chris Graves, Cohort 2018), Anthro (David Mackanic, Cohort 2021), and Tyfast (GJ la O' & Haodong Liu, Cohort 2022) participating in the battery showcase.

New America published an article by Activate’s CEO Cyrus Wadia about some of the great things that happen when we invest in science entrepreneurs. Activate Fellows show that investing in hard tech science yields an extraordinary ROI. Since 2015, Activate Fellows have secured $3.6B funding ($2B of that was in 2024 alone!). That’s an incredible 44X return on investment. Activate Fellows have created nearly 200 companies and about 3,000 jobs around the country, and 96% of these companies are still successfully growing (that’s far higher than the 25% success rate that startups usually see). Cyrus highlights how our partnership with National Science Foundation (NSF) enables the Activate Anywhere program to tap into innovation all around the country. This includes ideas from science entrepreneurs like Al-powered dairy management in North Carolina from DairyPhIt, emission-free chemical manufacturing processes in Houston by Solidec, and faster and more efficient photonic chips in upstate New York from Photonect Interconnect Solutions. As Cyrus says in the article, “America has the scientific talent needed to build companies that can help the nation compete globally in key technologies, and we've proven our fellowship model can activate this potential nationwide.” https://lnkd.in/gKKp6UTK

If #climatetech is to scale and help accelerate the deep #decarbonization the world urgently needs, we’ll need to ease the challenges #startups often face working or partnering with large companies, and quickly. That was the focus of an invite-only forum Trellis Group hosted at #VERGE24 in Oct., in partnership with Activate. A lot of great insights, which I've just summarized. Thanks to Jake Mitchell Cyrus Wadia Nikhil B. Gargeya Kaavya "Kavi" Reddy Mollie Starr for making this happen. https://lnkd.in/gADGfYxu

At the Climate Tech Commercialization Forum at VERGE, co-hosted by Activate, we explored how startups and corporates can collaborate more closely and effectively to commercialize climate technologies. Joel Makower, chairman and co-founder at Trellis Group, helped host the event and just published an article that highlights some of the important takeaways: https://lnkd.in/gSDyZYBD The conversations that morning included talks by Vanessa Z Chan from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), who talked about their introducing the Adoption Readiness Level (ARL) metric to evaluate technologies, and Activate Entrepreneur-in-Residence Leila Madrone who called for funding pathways beyond the VC playbook. Workshop participants uncovered several actionable ideas for partnerships that can drive decarbonization including, financing, de-risking, and organizational strategies. Check out Joel’s article for more details! At Activate, we think it’s critical for corporates and startups to come together so both sides can understand each other’s needs. These are the building blocks to setting up the best partnerships, pilots, and agreements for success.

Congratulations to the many Activate Fellows who are on the new Forbes 30 Under 30 list! 4 Fellows on the Manufacturing & Industry list:   Blake Herren, Co Founder & CEO of Raven Space Systems (Cohort 2024)     Krish Mehta, Founder of PHNX Materials (Cohort 2024)    Katy Jinkins, PhD, Cofounder of SixLine Semiconductor (Cohort 2023)  Minh Tran, Cofounder of Heliotrope Photonics (Cohort 2024)  3 Fellows and one Activate company on the Energy & Green Tech list:  Zhiao Yu Cofounder and CTO of Feon Energy, Inc. Energy (Cohort 2023)  Mohammad A. Alkhadra, Founder of Lithios (Cohort 2022)  Yang Zhong, Founder of WeNexus (Cohort 2024) Viji T., Founder of Sinkco Labs an Activate company, with Brenna Boehman as CSO (Cohort 2024) #Forbes #Forbes30under30 #Energy #GreenTech #Manufacturing #Industry

We’re excited to see several Activate Fellows' companies featured in Chemical Engineering News: Pascal (@Jinyoung Seo and @Adam Slavney, Cohort 2023) has been named as one of “10 Start-Ups to Watch” in 2024, while Pheronym (Dr. Fatma Kaplan and Karl Cameron Schiller, Cohort 2021) and Elateq (Ljiljana Rajić, Cohort 2024) are both listed as startups on their radar! “[Pascal]… can side-step the global warming impact of refrigerants with a heat pump system that uses refrigerants that remain solid throughout the heat transfer cycle, which prevents them from escaping into the atmosphere.” writes journalist Craig Bettenhausen. Pheronym has created a seed coating that helps keep harmful nematodes from infecting crops, while also attracting positive insect killing nematodes. According to reporting by Matt Blois and Alex Scott, “Kaplan hopes that in a year, the firm will be selling its products to greenhouse operators, first the beneficial nematode stimulant and later the parasitic nematode repellent.” Elateq is creating the next generation of electrochemical water processing technologies. The article outlines how "Elateq uses an electrochemical cell to remove metals, pathogens, organic pollutants, and other contaminants," and cites tests being done in both Amherst, Massachusetts, and Kolkata, India. (Links to the articles are in the Comments...) #ChemicalNews #EngineeringNews #ActivateFellows #HVAC #CropHealth

The data is in: Activate Anywhere, our growing remote fellowship spanning the U.S., is producing outstanding results! Andrés Ochoa C., Managing Director of the Activate Anywhere Community, recently studied how our remote-first communities are doing and he outlines several exciting discoveries:  1️⃣ The demand for nationwide science entrepreneurship is high. Among applicants for Cohort 2024, 425—over 41 percent—applied to Activate Anywhere (vs. the in-person locations of New York, Boston, Houston, and Berkeley). 2️⃣ Geography isn't necessarily a barrier to entrepreneurs raising capital or securing grants. Fellows in the Anywhere Community have raised $56M total, compared to the average total of $44.1M per community across Berkeley, Boston, and New York. This is contrary to our hypothesis that fellows in more traditional ecosystems of entrepreneurship (e.g. Berkeley, New York, and Boston) might have more success raising capital. 3️⃣ The virtual community among Anywhere fellows are fostering the same sense of connection as our in-person communities. In fact, they rated their sense of community even higher than those in traditional in-residence locations. Across the board, Andrés writes about how the Activate Anywhere Community is not only meeting Activate’s vision, but is exceeding expectations. https://lnkd.in/g4C49Sru