About us
With a cumulative 150 years of experience, we've navigated the highs and lows of entrepreneurship—from smashing successes to valuable setbacks. It's these moments, especially the obstacles, that have fortified our resilience and fueled our ambition to guide startup founders toward thriving enterprises.
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Think of us as catalysts in a chemical reaction: our extensive experience and robust toolkit exponentially boost the odds of a startup's success. We've meticulously organized and structured these resources to serve the needs of startup founders in the most effective way possible.
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Though countless resources exist, they're often dispersed and unorganized, making it difficult for startups to find a coherent, disciplined path to follow.
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While no two startup journeys are the same, our collective insights suggest that there are certain essential steps that should be taken early on. These include understanding your company's core mission and its value to you and your customers, speaking directly to those customers to deeply understand their needs, and recognizing the significance of intelligent financial investment. These lessons are at the heart of our Activate Foundation Programme, which we created based on our successes and instructive setbacks.
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We've interacted with hundreds of founders and startups, and we understand that they need comprehensive support—from hiring and financial management to preparing for the next round of funding and effective marketing strategies. Our programs and services are designed to offer just that kind of all-encompassing assistance.
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Our mission extends beyond individual startups; we aim to energize the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem, encompassing venture networks and corporate venturing initiatives.
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Our team consists of individuals who are deeply committed to forging genuine relationships, embodying authenticity, and harnessing the power of community. Our work is founded on principles of respect, diligence, passion, and integrity. We're excited for you to meet our team! 👇
Meet The Team
Tracey Keys
Tracey has started businesses, advised a leading startup studio, invested in startups, and mentored founders. As Managing Partner, she directs the highly successful Activate Foundation Programme, as well as growing our range of services.
She has over thirty years of experience as a consultant, educator and executive, working at C-suite level in many industries across Europe, the US, Asia and Africa. She has authored numerous books and articles on strategy, global trends and executive education.
Tracey is a Fulbright Scholar with an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania where she was distinguished as a Palmer Scholar, and a first-class B.Com.(Hons) from the University of Edinburgh.
When not working, she can usually be found in the garden growing produce, in the kitchen experimenting with recipes, in/on the water paddling, reading, writing and exploring new places.
Greg Rice
Greg is the founder and Director of Activate Studio, Activate Capital and Station.
He's a seasoned entrepreneur and jack-of-all-trades type business person. Greg spent the first 10 years of his working life in Silicon Valley, and since then has been dispensing Silicon Valley ways in Europe.
He has worked in a number of different countries and has been involved in many startups in various capacities.
He believes startups have a certain energy and taking new ideas to market is a challenge he really enjoys.
Activate gives Greg a great platform in which to build and launch new digital ideas and well as providing him with the opportunity to work with customers to develop solutions and help them realise their goals.
When not working with startups, he can usually be found on two wheels, tinkering with things that have two wheels -- or just going somewhere fast!
Nancy Yee
Combine finance, operations, and technology, and you have Nancy. Serving as the COO/CFO at Activate Ventures, she is a self-described entrepreneur who is focused on growing our company and yours. With 30 years of experience, Nancy is an accomplished C-level financials and operations executive and has overseen a range of initiatives–from building startup companies to identifying and implementing fintech. Nancy has been a partner at a Silicon Valley venture capital firm; the COO at a successful software startup; and the CTO and head of operations at an $8 billion international private equity firm. She has sat on multiple boards both as a member and observer.
Nancy holds a BS in electrical engineering from Columbia University and an MBA in Management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Ask her about how to make a tasty Irish soda bread. Baking is her secret talent!
Pierpaolo Zollo
Pierpaolo spent the last 20 years in the digital and ad tech industry helping global companies in Europe, UK, APAC, North and South America achieve exponential growth through strong leadership, marketing & sales, strategic partnerships, innovation and international expansion.
He helped clients in retail, hospitality and travel achieve significant revenue growth and he recently set up his own consulting business mainly focusing on supporting startups in getting traction.
In his spare time you will find Pierpaolo travelling (likely on a remote island / beach) at the gym (fitness and well-being being his lifetime passion!), enjoying food or reading 3 books at once.
Adrian Austin
Adrian is The Director of Design at Activate Studio, a digital startup studio, working with founders designing businesses around digital products, services and innovative software platforms. He's always always on the lookout for the next big innovation in design thinking and has developed a strong belief that effective design stems from having an open and creative mind, and being in a state of constant learning.
Adrian helped to create the Activate Foundation Programme and works with the Activate Ventures team to deliver the content.
He's also a dedicated entrepreneur, crafting hand-made ceramics, wooden products and wonderful baked goods -- hence his love of cycling to work them off!
Our story
Just ahead of the pandemic in response to massive demand for startup support and before anyone else really thought about building a solid and comprehensive digital programme, we created the online Activate Foundation Programme, with the Activate Studio team, leveraging many decades of experience working with startups. In 6 (busy!) weeks, we aimed to help early stage startups build the foundations for a successful business, connect with mentors and like-minded entrepreneurs and prepare to raise funds.
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It was trial by fire as everyone locked down, but in the last 2 years we ended up helping over 70 startups get investor ready. In fact, over 40% of the founders who took the Activate acceleration programme successfully raised funds, totalling £56 million.
2021 saw the creation of the TechSouthWest Startup Studio programme, with Cohort 2 launched in October 2021. Our services for larger organizations, whether supporting regional startup ecosystems or corporate venturing initiatives will be scaled up in 2023 and beyond.