Connecticut Innovations may be headed to Elm City

PHOTO | New Haven Biz

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By Michael C. Bingham

Connecticut Innovations (CI), the state’s quasi-public venture-capital investment arm, may relocate some of its operations from Rocky Hill to New Haven by the end of the calendar year.

The business-investment group could relocate some of its operations to non-traditional office spaces in both Hartford and New Haven, such as “co-working” centers including District New Haven on James Street, officials said.

In addition to Rocky Hill, CII currently leases space in Bridgeport and Stamford. It also recently leased shared office space in the West Hartford co-working facility Spaces.

The organization will decide over the coming month what relocation decisions actively to pursue, as its Rocky Hill lease expires in September. The next board meeting is scheduled for April 2.

According to CII communications director Lauren Carmody, “We still have the ability to stay in Rocky Hill once our lease is up [in September], but it doesn’t look like we’re going to.

“New Haven is centrally located, so we like that,” Carmody added. “And we have a large number of companies in our [investment] portfolio that are based in or around New Haven. So we’re actively looking there.”

District New Haven is a technology-focused co-working facility housed in a former CT Transit bus depot on a nine-acre parcel at 470 James Street. CI currently has six employees housed in office space there, “so that’s one of a couple of spaces we’re looking at” in greater New Haven, Carody said.

Connecticut Innovations ranked No. 7 on the Forbes magazine list of 10 venture-capital firms that made the most investments in health-care startups during calendar 2018, having funded 20 deals throughout the state last year.

CI board chairman Matthew Cantor told the Hartford Courant that the group is attracted to housing operations in both Hartford and New Haven because “those [are] places where we’re working the hardest on developing centers of innovation and entrepreneurship.”

Contact Michael C. Bingham at mbingham@newhavenbiz.com