Commercial fishing, a mainstay of Connecticut commerce, is raising a cautionary voice – even as the state is doubling down on the potential benefits of wind power off the state’s shoreline, aimed at increasing energy efficiency and economic development. Don’t grow one renewable resource at the cost of another, they stress, as the legislature ponders action.
Read MoreConnecticut is well positioned to participate in the offshore wind economy and supply chain, some say. The state is stepping slowly.
Read MoreA legislatively appointed working group was tasked with developing a state master plan for blockchain technology. Instead, a handful of legislative proposals were initiated. Among them are two currently awaiting action in the House and Senate, including for a pilot in the state’s administrative agency.
Read MoreThe Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford metropolitan area is the fourth best region in the nation for female entrepreneurs, according to a new analysis of U.S. Census Data. The percentage of startups that are female-owned: 30.8%
Read MoreProfessor Pasko Rakic, the Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Neurology, Yale School of Medicine has been selected as the 2019 recipient of the Connecticut Medal of Science.
Read MoreConnecticut ranks 23rd in the U.S. in the rate of inventions by women, below the U.S. average, in an analysis published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office this year.
Read MoreInnovation isn’t quite synonymous with Connecticut, but the state once known for Yankee Ingenuity is working on it. A recent state-by-state analysis reflects it is an uphill battle, with many competitors upping their game.
Read MoreHistoric preservation and solar panel would seem like oil and water, but increasingly in Connecticut, the advantages are seen to outweigh the disadvantages. The acceptance of solar comes as technology helps to make systems less obtrusive, and also as more historic preservationists recognize the urgency to address climate change, according to a report in Energy Network News.
About one-tenth of Connecticut’s 3,000 historic preservation cases last year involved solar installations. That’s a significant increase from five years ago, Todd Levine, an architectural historical for the state’s preservation office, told Energy Network News. Of those 300 solar cases, however, only 10 were concluded to have adverse effects, but even in those cases the state office was able to work with stakeholders and ultimately approve them all.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Department of the Interior recommend installing solar panels on the area least visible to the public or on any new addition on the property, like a garage. Typically, historic commissions don’t want panels on the principle facade of the building facing the public right-of-ways. Lower public visibility is preferred, but increasingly, that is not ruling out solar panel installation at historic properties.
At the state level, the historic preservation office has partnered with the quasi-public clean energy agency, the Connecticut Green Bank, to mitigate any adverse effects installs could have on historic properties. Energy Network News reports that they are currently collaborating on a publication they plan to distribute in the coming months outlining best practices on the intersection of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and historic preservation.
Also last year, Connecticut upped the ante on renewables across the board.
A new law approved in 2018 requires that by 2030, 40 percent of the power provided by electricity suppliers in the state flow from renewable sources, double the target for 2020. Another law approved by the 2018 legislature established a stringent interim greenhouse-gas-reduction goal of 45 percent below 2001 levels by 2030. The state’s 2008 Connecticut Global Warming Solutions Act mandates an 80 percent reduction by 2050.
The state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection explains that the term renewable energy generally refers to electricity supplied from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, geothermal, hydropower, and various forms of biomass. These energy sources are considered renewable sources because they are continuously replenished on Earth.
Currently, Hawaii has the most aggressive clean-energy mandate in the nation: 100 percent by 2045; followed by Vermont: 75 percent by 2032; and California, New York, and New Jersey, which each have a goal of 50 percent by 2030, according to the Council of State Governments.
California set a 100-percent-by-2045 zero-carbon electricity goal in September last year. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed the state set a 100-percent-by-2040 zero-carbon electricity goal in January. Newly elected governors in Colorado and Connecticut are pushing for 100-percent renewable energy mandates, as well, as are their counterparts in Illinois, Minnesota and Nevada, according to Solar Magazine. Connecticut’s legislature is also considering additional steps to encourage renewable energy in the state, the New London Day recently reported.
Six early-stage Connecticut companies now have additional funds to help fuel their growth, after participating in the Entrepreneur Innovation Awards (EIA) provided by CTNext, the state’s resource organization for entrepreneurial support. Following presentations from 10 finalists at the recent event, the judges awarded $10,000 grand prizes to the following Connecticut-based companies:
“At its core, Raise Green is a two-sided marketplace that provides people who want to build solar or other types of climate-solution projects with the tools they need to do that and to get it financed,” said Franz Hochstrasser, chief executive officer and co-founder of the start-up. 
According to the University of Connecticut Technology Incubation Program website, YouCOMM is a novel low-cost tablet based communication device to provide effective patient-caregiver communication. The device has 20 need buttons that allow patients to send specific needs to a nurse’s on-call phone.
Two additional companies also received recognition, and funds:
“The EIA Awards continue to showcase some of the most innovative and promising young companies across the state,” said Glendowlyn Thames, CTNext’s executive director. “We are looking forward to following the progress of the companies and wish all the competitors the best as they work to advance their ideas and visions.”
The six Connecticut companies were among 10 startups that presented their project ideas to a panel of judges for an opportunity to secure $10,000 awards to help support business growth.
Last fall, CTNext awarded $54,000 in grants to six Connecticut-based startups. Receiving $10,000 were:
In addition, Kolb Consultants won the $2,000 crowd favorite award, while VigorSential took home the $2,000 award for judges’ favorite. VigorSential is developing and testing “MycoZaps,” a low-dose vaccine to control Mycoplasma bovis (M. bovis), a bacterium mainly affecting cattle that is resistant to common antibiotics.
CTNext’s goal is to build a more robust community of entrepreneurs and to accelerate startup growth by providing access to talent, space, industry expertise, services, skill development and capital to foster innovation and create jobs for people in Connecticut.
CTNext (www.ctnext.com) has more than 2,500 members in its network.
Connecticut Innovations (CI) has landed on Forbes magazine’s list of the ten top venture capital firms making the most investments in healthcare start-ups during 2018. With 20 deals done during the year, CI ranked at number seven.
CI is Connecticut’s strategic venture capital arm and the state’s leading source of financing and ongoing support for innovative, growing companies. The two largest CI deals were with locally headquartered Arvinas, a $56 million investment, and Rallybio, a $37 million investment. 
Leading the way among venture capital firms in the U.S. were California-headquartered Alexandria Venture Investments (38 deals), Maryland-based New Enterprise Associates (28), Keiretsu Forum of California (27), OrbiMed, headquartered in New York (24), and ARCH Venture Partners (22) of Illinois. Just ahead of CI was SV Health Investors, with 21 deals. The venture capital firm is based in Massachusetts.
Nationally, startups in the sector have raised more money in 2018 than any previous year in the past decade.
Rallybio, based in Farmington at the University of Connecticut’s Technology Incubation Program, was co-founded in January 2018 by Martin Mackay, PhD, Stephen Uden MD, and Jeffrey Fryer, CPA, recognized leaders from the biopharma industry. The company’s focus: identifying and accelerating the development of transformative breakthrough therapies for patients with severe and rare disorders. They aim to develop innovative drug candidates against mechanisms that have strong biological rationales. Rallybio’s focus is on antibodies, small molecules and engineered proteins.
Last month, the company was named by FierceBiotech as one of 2018’s Fierce 15 biotechnology companies, designating it as one of the most promising private biotechnology companies in the industry.
Arvinas, headquartered in New Haven, is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to improving the lives of patients suffering from debilitating and life-threatening diseases through the discovery, development, and commercialization of therapies to degrade disease-causing proteins.
Building on groundbreaking research at Yale University by Craig Crews, Ph.D., Arvinas’ Founder and Chief Scientific Advisor, Arvinas has developed a broad technology platform “focused on high-value targets, with the potential to deliver safer, more potent treatment than small molecule inhibitors, and to address up to 80% of proteins that evade inhibition and are currently undruggable.” Among the company’s Board members is Ted Kennedy, Jr., a health care policy and disability activist, regulatory attorney, and former Connecticut state senator.
Connecticut Innovations is located in Rocky Hill.
© 2025 Connecticut By The Numbers [TM]
430 New Park Avenue, Suite 102, West Hartford, CT 06110
Designed by RDK Design & Photography
