On CT Innovations

I've been at CT Innovations (CI) for a few months now, and it's as good a time as any to jot down some pros and cons (which are mostly just tradeoffs) at the company. Nothing should be surprising or what you can get elsewhere on the internet, but still good to put it all in one place for myself. (My vantage point: someone newer to VC, with 8 years working for a large company and an MBA.)

Strengths

• People - the team is welcoming, and most of the directors/partners have worked at a start-up or in industry. Most have been at CI for a while, which is great for continuity of knowledge, but also makes CI a final career landing location (which helps with the sharing of deals, etc.)
• Connection to the state - as someone who's grown up in the state, I've been fascinated by what makes Connecticut attractive to businesses. It's also been great to see the connections with Yale, UConn, and other schools in the state.
• More creative capital - While the bulk of the portfolio is bread-and-butter early-stage start-up deals, CI also (a) makes technical assistance grants, (b) tries to invest locally, and (c) has a robust venture debt portfolio. Having the option for venture debt makes you think a little more not just about "is this a company we should invest in" but also "is equity the correct tool to use."
• Momentum in the state - ClimateHaven was founded in New Haven in 2022 to support climate tech, and the governor announced a recent initiative for $121M investment into building out QuantumCT. While the state will fall short in certain areas (e.g. it's hard to compete with SF in pure tech), there continues to be interesting, credible areas that the state is investing in.
• Breadth of companies, stages, and opportunities - CI covers bio/life sciences, consumer, tech, and climate, which is excellent for learning a little bit about nearly everything. CI's bread-and-butter is early-stage (pre-seed/seed, with follow-ons), but also willing to invest in later stages. They also have a (small) fund-of-funds portfolio with venture funds, an area of diligence attractive to me.

Weaknesses/ Trade-offs

• Harder to get depth into an industry - the tradeoff of breadth is that it's hard to find the time to go be a world-expert on any one thing. For example, some VCs might have their advantage be deep expertise on the cybersecurity market; that type of depth is harder to get at CI. (Again, for better and for worse.)
• Pseudo-public - Results in small things (like being beholden to FOIA) and larger things (like lower salaries that are publicly available).