Connecticut’s economic development agency is offering up to $100 million in grant funding aimed at fostering startup “clusters” in cities and towns around the state, with a focus on innovations in biotechnology, finance, insurance and advanced manufacturing.
Gov. Ned Lamont announced the initiative, dubbed the “Innovation Clusters Program,” during remarks at the Yale Innovation Summit Wednesday — a gathering of more than 2,500 startup founders, venture capital investors and business leaders at the Yale School of Management in New Haven. (Lamont’s wife, venture investor Annie Lamont, was seated in the front row.)
“We are some of the best when it comes to the life sciences, some of the best when it comes to advanced manufacturing … also in the FinTech space, from InsureTech in Hartford right down through Stamford,” Lamont said.
“Those are the investments we’re gonna make, trying to build out those ecosystems in a way that is transformative,” he said.
Interested municipalities must partner with at least one business, nonprofit organization or university to apply for the grant funding, ensuring private sources will match — and ideally exceed — the state’s contribution. The Department of Economic and Community Development, which is administering the program, will give priority to projects that include “walkable downtown or campus settings,” access to transit and support for workforce training and career development. DECD expects to issue a request for information next week.
While the bond-funded program is intended to foster innovation, the concept isn’t exactly innovative. Connecticut has tried, at least twice before, to establish entrepreneurship hubs in and around the state’s academic and urban centers.
A program known as “Innovation Places” within CTNext — Connecticut’s now-defunct quasi-public entrepreneurship support agency — lost traction during the pandemic, when many businesses went fully remote. A $100 million “Innovation Corridors” program, established within DECD less than three years ago, no longer appears on the agency’s website.
DECD Commissioner Dan O’Keefe said Innovation Corridors still exists, but he anticipates it will be “sunsetted” because it wasn’t successful. There are currently no projects being funded under that program, he said.
“In my view, Innovation Corridors was overly specific, and I wanted this to be broad,” O’Keefe said. “I wanted to specify the areas where we’re seeing growth, but I want the market to come to us with ideas.” For example, depending on the project, grant funding could go toward laboratory space, incubator space, workforce training or even internet infrastructure, he said.
O’Keefe pointed to the recent launch of an effort known as QuantumCT as an example of an “innovation cluster” already taking shape in the state. The public-private partnership, which involves both Yale University and the University of Connecticut, received a $1 million federal grant last year to undertake a proposal establishing a quantum research hub in Connecticut.
Before taking the helm at DECD last year, O’Keefe spent 25 years as an investor focused on software, consumer technology and FinTech companies. He said he sees the potential for Connecticut to become a hub for emerging technologies like quantum computing and artificial intelligence, and he wants to help the state attract more private investment.
“What we’re seeking to do is support the application of those next generation horizontals to verticals, where you have a competitive advantage,” he said. “We want to double down and invest in these existing trend lines because those two new emerging categories — quantum and artificial intelligence — have the opportunity to fundamentally transform our biggest industries.”