The innovation tour hit 300 George St.
On the eighth floor of a tower that symbolizes New Haven’s bustling new tech economy — as well as its potential precariousness — civic leaders pitched a visiting delegation of grantmakers on a multi-million boost to take New Haven to the next level as an innovation “hub.”
A team comprised of city officials, tech-start up gurus and Yale University officials made the pitch Thursday to visiting board members of a quasi-public state agency called CT Next on designating New Haven an “innovation place” and handing over a piece of a $30 million pot that board has to award over the next five years.
They made the pitch at 100 College St. headquarters of Alexion Pharmaceuticals, the rare-disease orphan-drug developer that lost three top execs this week amid a continuing scandal over alleged shady business practices (as captured in this Bloomberg Business Week story).
No one talked about that during Thursday’s visit. (Asked by a reporter about the Alexion news later Thursday, Mayor Toni Harp expressed confidence that the company will recover from what she characterized as the customary “ebbs and tides” of businesses.”)
Instead, they looked out at the landscape of biomedical and other tech businesses that have sprung up throughout town to depict a city on the move, ready, with some help from CT Next, to help Connecticut compete with other states to hatch the businesses of the future.
Markeshia Ricks Photo
The innovation tour departs from Alexion.
The city was one of 12 applicants, and now one of seven finalists, for the organization’s “Innovation Place” program, which focuses on developing communities in the state through public-private partnerships to attract people who want to start innovative businesses, create high-skill jobs and build community.
In making a pitch to visiting CT Next board members Thursday, New Haven pointed out that the city government and private-sector entrepreneurs are already creating incubator and maker spaces for people looking to develop new products and start new companies.
They pitched the board on a $5.5 million grant proposal to build on that work through an “Elm City Innovation Collaborative.” The collaborative would aim to raise the city’s profile as a place where people want to come for innovation because the space for development and expansion, the capital, and the talent can all be found here. It would seek to launch arts and trade events, workshops, hubs, “vivarium services” (laboratories for animal trials) to eight biopharma companies in Science Park, and a “tech training umbrella” to build New Haveners’ digital skills.
The leaders made a presentation — including the above video — inside Alexion. Then they pitched the walkability of New Haven, taking the visitors through downtown streets, to a lab inside the 300 George St. tech center, stopping by Gateway Community College, and introducing them to entrepreneurs from the Grove and successful homegrown businesses like SeeClickFix.
City Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson pitches at Alexion.
“Our strategy is built around connectivity and taking advantage of the great city that is New Haven,” said Rich Jacobs, Yale’s associate vice president for federal and state relations. “We want to focus on growing together and providing support for would-be entrepreneurs as well as the talent pool that wants to get into those companies.”
City staffer Michael Harris presenting at Alexion.
He said though New Haven’s team believes the city is already the state’s innovation hub, there is also a recognition that “we are not yet at the point of having made a sum that’s greater than the parts.” For instance, he said, the city is short on laboratory and office space and is somewhat unrecognized inside and outside the state for the companies and talent that exist here.
“The connectivity is still not there the way we want it to be,” he said. “Connectivity within the community among the educational institutions but also connectivity between the innovation economy and the broader New Haven population. We’re rich with bioscience talent and companies, we have emerging strength in digital technology and software. We can do more, and we want to engage every New Havener.”
Board members George Mathanool said he liked the pitch.
Sri Muthu, founder and CEO of HealthVenture, said he ran into two problems when trying to launch health care companies: a need for lab space and a need for money. Muthu, who spent part of his career in Silicon Valley before coming to Yale to get an MBA, said when he pitches investors on the West Coast the money simply flows, but they pause when he tells them the business is based in Connecticut.
“It’s a little difficult here,” he said. “The say, ‘Why not move here?’ But I have to tell them that the people that are the talent are in Connecticut.”
CT Next Board Chair McCooe.
Through the Elm City Innovation Collaborative, he envisions better connectivity to space for development and expansion of companies, as well as local South by Southwest-style events that put innovators, entrepreneurs and angel investors in the same place.
“New Haven is not seen as a place to be yet,” he said.
New Haven was the last city to make its pitch before the CT Next Board makes its decision on which ones will get funded.
Board Chair Matthew McCooe said he’s excited about New Haven’s tech growth over the past 15 years. He said he believes small cities like New Haven that have a mix of urban amenities, entrepreneurs, and academics will be attractive to big companies like GE, which decided last year to move its headquarters from Fairfield to Boston.
“I go back to what GE said when they left,” he said. “GE didn’t leave because they got a better package or because they hated our tax structure or Connecticut was unfriendly to business. But because the CEO said in the paper recently it was because he looked out his window and he saw a deer. He didn’t want to see deer. He wanted to see people and students and companies and activity and wanted to have collisions with entrepreneurs and academics.”
Rain dampens the walk.
McCooe said with the kinds of public-private investments that have been made in New Haven, 10 years from now, GE might decide to come back. He recommended to the New Haven team that it add information on plans for the new tech hub emerging by the Mill River known as the District and include information about the coming bike share program.
“Especially if New Haven gets the transportation piece right,” he said. “GE might say it should have gone to a smaller city like New Haven. People don’t necessarily want to go to the Bostons and New Yorks.”