Connecticut Innovations, the state’s venture capital and lending arm, reported that its equity investment activity slowed in recent months, but the quasi-public agency said it continues to find opportunities despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
CI said this week that it made $7.8 million worth of equity investments in its first quarter of fiscal year 2021 (July to September), with funds flowing to 17 companies and two funds of funds.
Both the dollar amount and number of recipients were down from the same three months of 2019, when CI committed $9.9 million to 25 distinct investments.
In a statement, David Wurzer, CI’s chief investment officer, characterized the recent three months as an active quarter for the agency.
“While the pandemic is affecting companies of all shapes and sizes, we continue to find tremendous opportunities to invest in Connecticut technology startups during this time,” Wurzer said.
CI said its $7.8 million helped leverage an additional $170.4 million in capital from outside investors.
The agency’s largest investments during the recent quarter went to Diameter Health (Farmington), which makes clinical data software for health insurers and other users; Azitra (Branford), a clinical stage medical dermatology company; diagnostic testing and predictive modeling provider Sema4 (Branford/Stamford); and ReNetX Bio (New Haven), which is developing a protein treatment for chronic spinal cord injury.
Each of those companies received approximately $1 million from CI during the first quarter.
The bulk ($5.6 million) of CI’s equity investments went to the bioscience and healthcare sectors. IT companies were the second biggest category, at $1.5 million.
Firms that received CI funding last quarter included:
Diameter Health, $1,166,998.00
Azitra Inc, $1,000,000.00
Sema4 , $1,000,000.00
ReNetX Bio Inc., $999,999.00
Mother’s Choice, $700,000.00
Budderfly, $500,000.00
M&M Media Inc., $500,000.00
Splitty Travel Ltd., $330,000.00
Aureus Analytics, $268,390.00
Convexity Scientific LLC, $263,736.27
Torigen Pharmaceuticals, $200,000.00
Budderfly, $188,679.00
HighCape Partners, $165,000.00
Project Well, $150,000.00
Rellevate, $150,000.00
Artist Republik, $100,000.00
Cloud 9 Online LLC, $100,000.00
1843 Capital LLC, $26,293.00
SecBI, $20,601.00
Aerotherapeutics Inc., $15,000.00
