Activate

Activate draws almost exclusively from the US national laboratory system—institutions like Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Argonne, and Sandia—as well as leading research universities with deep ties to federal science funding. The fellowship program actively recruits Ph.D. scientists and postdocs whose innovations are too technically immature for traditional venture capital but commercially promising enough to warrant a full-time entrepreneurial commitment.

The fellowship provides a living stipend, a research budget, and access to a network of venture firms and corporate partners—all structured as non-dilutive grants. This allows fellows to advance their technology for up to two years before raising an external priced equity round, deferring dilution until technical milestones reduce science risk to a level venture firms can underwrite.

Activate does not take direct equity as part of the fellowship program itself—funding is structured as a grant. However, the organization is deeply integrated into the hard-tech venture ecosystem and its corporate partners often establish early commercial relationships or strategic investment channels with graduating fellows. Activate may participate in future Special Purpose Vehicles or fund structures designed to support its alumni.

Activate concentrates on physical-world innovation where fundamental science is the primary competitive advantage. Active sectors include advanced materials, quantum computing, industrial decarbonization, carbon management, next-generation energy storage, and AI-powered hardware. Software-only plays are explicitly absent—the program exists specifically to serve hard-tech founders whom software-focused accelerators typically cannot resource.

Activate partners with over 80 venture firms and strategic corporations including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, DCVC, and Capricorn Investment Group. Government partners include the Department of Energy, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, and various national labs that serve as the primary talent pipeline. These partners provide technology validation, pilot programs, and follow-on capital.

Activate operates on a multi-year timeline designed for hard tech rather than the three-month sprint model of software accelerators. Fellows are typically Ph.D. scientists managing physics or chemistry risk, not founders optimizing for product-market fit on a SaaS product. The non-dilutive grant structure and the direct pipeline from national laboratories are uniqueness markers—Activate absorbs technical risk that traditional accelerators cannot diligence.

Activate operates fellowship hubs in Berkeley, Boston, and New York—each co-located with major national laboratory clusters or research universities. A recent expansion into the New York metro area was launched in partnership with NYSERDA and focuses specifically on grid-scale energy storage and carbon management startups. Fellows can choose the location that best aligns with their laboratory and partner needs.