Activate Global

Provides a global exchange platform connecting early innovators, investors, and accelerators with education and market readiness.

Activate Global is a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit that runs a two-year fellowship for scientists and engineers building hard-tech companies. The model began at Cyclotron Road at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and now operates as an independent foundation-style organisation based in the United States, with cohorts in Berkeley, Boston, Houston, New York, and a remote Anywhere track.

The fellowship provides equity-free support of roughly $300,000 or more over two years, plus research and development resources and close mentorship. Its backers span federal agencies such as DOE-EERE, NSF, and CHIPS, state energy agencies such as MassCEC, NYSERDA, and the California Energy Commission, and a long list of private foundations including Gates, Chan Zuckerberg, Three Cairns, and others. The program is aimed at climate, energy, manufacturing, materials, hardware, and biotech founders who are still turning laboratory work into a company.

Activate's positioning is unusually specific: it does not behave like a general grantmaker, but like a founder-training platform for science-based ventures. The published impact figures are material, with hundreds of fellows supported, billions in follow-on capital raised, and thousands of jobs created, which makes the program attractive to researchers who need time, capital, and technical backing before a company can stand on its own.