A Letter to the Virginia Entrepreneur Community

​CBInsights, a highly respected source of information on venture funding, released a report outlining possible effects the Coronavirus pandemic could have on seed-stage funding efforts. The report makes dire predictions on how the COVID-19 crisis could affect this vital source of early-stage capital.
 
A link to the report is here: How Covid-19 Could Impact Seed-Stage Startup Investing
 
While projections for private capital availability show a sharp drop off, CIT has resources available, and we remain committed to maintaining an uninterrupted presence in the early stage venture market. We continue to provide critical funding to startups, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Since the beginning of Virginia’s pandemic response, we have closed five deals totaling $725K in new money to the local startup community. Additionally, the CIT GAP Funds team has a long pipeline of promising opportunities that have great potential to close in the near term.
 
In addition to CIT GAP Fund activities, our work on strategic initiatives in areas such as smart communities and commercialization allowed us to provide $325K in funding to private companies and university innovators during this period.
 
Finally, our Commonwealth Research and Commercialization Fund team remains on track for non-dilutive financial grant awards to the private sector and university innovators totaling over $2M in June of this year.
 
Bottom line - CIT remains in the market. We maintain our ability to fund companies and innovators. We are here to engage with you. I am reaching out to encourage connecting on opportunities to work together during this time.
 
Sincerely,
 
Ed Albrigo,
CEO & President
Center for Innovative Technology