 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  During Women’s History Month, celebrated each March, the Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) is proud to highlight Virginia’s community of female entrepreneurs. Nearly 60 of CIT GAP Funds’ 200+ investments were founded by or include female executives. Bolstered by the Virginia Founders Fund, which increases access to capital for startups founded by women and other traditionally underserved entrepreneurial communities in the Commonwealth, CIT maintains a strong commitment to continue investing in women-led startups.
Women entrepreneurs make up a significant portion of U.S. small business owners, with the U.S. Census Bureau estimating over 12.3 million companies owned by women. According to a recent report from SmartAsset that set out to identify the top cities for women in tech, examining U.S. cities with 200,000 residents or more, two Virginia cities – Chesapeake and Arlington – were both named among the top five best cities for women in tech. The findings were based on a number of factors, including the city’s tech employment growth over the last three years, number of women in the tech workforce, and its gender pay gap. Press Release Here | http://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/03/26/2007128/0/en/CIT-Recognizes-Women-Led-Virginia-Startups-During-Women-s-History-Month.html The Best Cities for Women in Tech in 2019 | Full Article https://smartasset.com/checking-account/the-best-cities-for-women-in-tech-in-2019  “MetiStream’s mission to accelerate and simplify how clinical insights are delivered is solving a large market need for improved patient care and outcomes,” said Tom Weithman, Managing Director of CIT GAP Funds. “CIT is confident that the company’s established customer success team, combined with Ember’s strong data integration capabilities to onboard a variety of healthcare datasets from clinical to genomics with limited coding required, will be a recipe for success.”
Link to press release here: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/03/24/2005678/0/en/CIT-GAP-Funds-Invests-in-MetiStream-to-Improve-Patient-Outcomes-by-Addressing-Healthcare-Industry-s-Unstructured-Data-Problems.html  Herndon, VA, March 18, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As the global and national COVID-19 situation evolves, it is vital to communicate that the health and safety of everyone is our number one priority. Our thoughts are with those who have been most affected by this crisis. There will be significant economic effects on all businesses; the innovation, research, and entrepreneurial communities in Virginia are no exception. The nature of these effects will evolve over the coming weeks and months. However, I remain confident that the continuity of innovation efforts happening now will be critical to weathering the storm and will speed the eventual long-term recovery in the Commonwealth. With that said, I would like to make it clear that CIT is open for business.
Full content here: http://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/03/18/2002885/0/en/A-Letter-to-Virginia-s-Innovation-Research-and-Entrepreneurial-Communities-Regarding-CIT-s-COVID-19-Response.html  Congratulations to the Virginia CIT Gap Funds Portfolio Companies who made the list this year & congratulations to all | Full list found here: https://www.crunchbase.com/lists/hot-tech-companies-globally/18356751-e468-4735-b94b-c22e4a87e838/organization.companies
 Congratulations to CIT GAP Funds Portfolio Companies MarginEdge and HUNGRY named among the best Startup Employers in the US by Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/americas-best-startup-employers/#7d16b23e6527 |
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Updated 11/23/20