Activate and The Engine have announced a strategic alliance to support more hard tech breakthroughs in achieving commercialisation.
Activate and The Engine will offer more programming and support along the entire pathway for early technical founders – from ideation and lab R&D, to customer pilots and commercialisation. Deeptech entrepreneurs will be able to tap into more joint curriculum, training, and expert support for every stage of the founder journey.
Both Activate and The Engine serve founders and teams who are developing breakthrough solutions that solve critical global issues. These entrepreneurs are building leading-edge technologies that address humanity’s most pressing challenges including climate solutions, advanced manufacturing and robotics, new uses of chemistry and materials, reimagined food and agriculture, space innovations, and more.
The Engine and Activate have similar philosophies around “just in time” learning, providing deeptech founders with the precise tools they need along the founder journey while they’re building a company. In coming together, the organisations will identify gaps in the founder pathway for scientists and can offer new programmes to fill those gaps for up-and-coming science entrepreneurs.
The alliance will draw on their complementary offerings such as The Engine’s Whiteboard and Blueprint, which invite research professors and scientists to explore forming companies around their discoveries; these same teams may subsequently take advantage of Activate’s Fellowship, a two-year programme for emerging science and engineering entrepreneurs where they receive the entrepreneurial training they need to establish a successful hard-tech business while they continue to build their technical idea in the lab.
Emily Knight, president and CEO of The Engine, said, “Our organisations share a fundamental belief in the power of technologist entrepreneurs to drive meaningful change. By combining our expertise and resources, we will create a more robust, supportive pathway for tough tech founders that ultimately reduces the time between breakthrough research and meaningful societal impact. This means more tough tech solutions reaching the markets and communities that need them most.”
“If we’re going to move with more speed and see the next generation of amazing ideas go live in the market, then we need like-minded organizations like Activate and The Engine to link arms and move progress forward,” said Cyrus Wadia, CEO of Activate.
“Our collective founder communities are working on some of the hardest problems in the world, and they’re using the most novel approaches in science. If we can help their ideas reach the market and achieve scale, all of humanity will benefit. These are bold promises—but they’re possible.”
Jim Cornall is editor of Deeptech Digest and publisher at Ayr Coastal Media. He is an award-winning writer, editor, photographer, broadcaster, designer and author. Contact Jim here.
