Mercer: Activate Convenes 100 Civic Leaders for 24-Month Actionable Frameworks
“We get one city, one day, 100 leaders, and we lead them through a rapid ideation that we've developed, and we've had an entire framework Where we can run eight round tables at one time, focusing on different issues like a region's economy, strength, the talent…”
Mercer: Activate Uses Generative AI to Rank and Validate City Initiatives
“We've built a AI tech enabled platform that creates outcome intelligence. And so activate becomes not just that one day and then 100 leaders. We now have some permanence because we've provided some actual data of the cities that we've had these ideations in cr…”
Mercer: Atlanta's World Cup electric bus rollout came from Activate ideation
“One of the issues was refurbishing their light rail line, their MARTA high speed line. They have a 104 miles of track. And being able to enact electric buses. That idea came out of our ideation. I understand that they have enacted a bunch of that ready for the…”
Wadia: Post-PhD or postdoc is the ideal time for science entrepreneurship
“One of the best insertion moments in a person's career trajectory is really right after that PhD or like during or right after the postdoc, because at that moment in time, They're making a career decision, right?”
Wadia: Activate accepts 40 to 50 of 1,000 U.S. applicants annually
“We see about a thousand applicants a year in the U.S., and we're able to support anywhere between 40 and 50 fellows across the country”
Wadia: Activate excludes software and AI to fund physical hard tech
“We don't do software. We don't do AI. Like we're in the business of the physical world. So steel in the ground, that's who we are.”
Wadia: Activate gives fellows $100K salary and a $100K recoverable grant
“So a 100,000 a year in basic salary on top of that, they get health benefits and then an additional a 100,000 over the fellowship as a recoverable grant. And that means if they end up hitting milestones, they raise funds, they can return those funds to activat…”
Wadia: Scientific founders do not need MBA co-founders to be CEOs
“For any scientist or engineer who wants to be the CEO to actually run the business, that is why Activate exists as well, because we are, you know, we firmly believe if you are trying to retire risk in these hard tech ventures in the very early days, there is a…”
Wadia: Activate's 230 portfolio companies have raised $5B in follow-on funding
“We've supported roughly 300 founders, scientific founders. That's led to about 230 companies, and here's a stat that I think is really worth knowing, that those companies after Activate Have raised collectively five billion dollars and fall on funding.”
Ransohoff: Stripe offers $500k first-customer contracts to qualifying carbon removal startups
“And our partnership with Activate and with Deep Science Ventures is essentially saying, you know, we will, for any company that meets our Target criteria. We will give you a 500,000 dollar procurement contract to be your first buyer and help bridge that commer…”