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Cic
Cambridge, US · 2 known investors
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CIC operates Innovation Campuses that provide flexible workspace, private offices, labs, and event spaces for entrepreneurs, startups, enterprises, and research teams, and offers Catalyst advisory services for designing innovation programs and partnerships. Founded in 1999, it works across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Also known as Cambridge Innovation Center · CIC
Founders & leadership
Investors · 2
Also in the syndicate · 1
Company profile
researched Aug 2026CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center) is a privately held American company that builds and operates "Innovation Campuses" combining coworking space, private offices and suites, commercial wet labs with shared equipment and benches, bookable conference rooms, and event and meeting venues. Its campuses host a mix of startups, scale-ups, corporations, corporate innovation spin-outs, institutions, public entities and venture capital funds, with onsite operational support, amenities and programming intended to reduce the overhead of setting up workspace or research operations.
Alongside physical space, CIC runs an ecosystem-services arm marketed as CIC Catalyst, which provides advisory work, program design, partnership development and ecosystem activation for innovation-district conveners, institutional leaders, corporations and public partners. Related programs and units described by the company include Captains of Innovation consulting, the CIC Institute (learning programs for startups), Venture Café (community events including the Thursday Gathering), a Japan Desk connecting the Japanese and Boston innovation ecosystems, and an International Soft Landing program for entrepreneurs expanding abroad. CIC also houses innovation globalization programs for more than a dozen governments, including Canada, China, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. Brands associated with the company include CIC and LabCentral, and in 2020 it founded a subsidiary, CIC Health, which managed COVID-19 testing sites and, in 2021, state-run mass vaccination centers in Massachusetts under contract with the Commonwealth.
Founding story
The company was founded in 1999 by MIT graduates Timothy Rowe and Andrew Olmsted, starting in 2,700 square feet at 238 Main Street in Kendall Square, Cambridge, a building that also housed the MIT Treasurer's office.
Business model
CIC leases and operates workspace, laboratory and event real estate, providing flexible workspace, private offices and suites, wet lab benches with shared equipment, meeting rooms and event venues to member companies and organizations, supplemented by fee-based advisory and program services (CIC Catalyst / Captains of Innovation) for organizations and communities building innovation ecosystems.
Revenue is derived from workspace, lab and office memberships and rentals, bookable conference and event space, and consulting/advisory and program-design services for corporations, institutions and public entities.
Traction
The company reports that more than 14,000 entrepreneurs, startups, scale-ups, enterprises, institutions and ecosystem partners have worked with CIC (an about page cites more than 10,000 companies and organizations since 1999), that it hosts more than 4,000 events, programs and gatherings annually, and that companies connected to CIC have raised more than $34 billion in capital. It manages roughly 1.5 million square feet of space. Historical tenants include Google, which set up its New England headquarters at CIC in 2005; Maven Technologies, later a Yahoo subsidiary; HubSpot, a tenant from 2006 to 2010; and GreatPoint Energy, which raised $103 million for coal gasification technology while based at CIC in 2007.
Latest developments
Leadership has been restructured in recent years: founder Tim Rowe serves as Executive Chairman; Denyse Medlenka, who joined as Chief People Officer in 2022 and became COO and then President in 2024, is CEO; Brian Dacey, president from 2010 to 2024, is Vice Chair and Managing Director; Victor Mulas became the company's first Chief Innovation Officer in 2024 and leads Innovation Ecosystem Services as President of CIC Catalyst; Michelle Ottey, PhD, leads CIC Campuses and Labs. Tim Rowe received the Japanese Foreign Minister's Award in 2024.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
CIC describes itself as the first innovation center to open and positions itself as a global operator of innovation campuses; it managed approximately 1.5 million square feet of workspace, laboratory and event space across North America, Europe and Asia, with locations in about 10 cities. Its model has been cited in research on innovation districts and public-private partnerships as one that private companies and local governments have sought to replicate.
CIC combines flexible workspace, wet-lab infrastructure and event venues in a single campus with onsite operational support and dense programming, and pairs that physical footprint with ecosystem advisory services (Catalyst) covering program design, partnership development and innovation-district consulting. It also emphasizes being the first innovation center of its kind, its Kendall Square/MIT origins, and its hosting of government-backed soft-landing and globalization programs.
Technology
The offering is physical infrastructure rather than proprietary software: serviced workspace and modern commercial wet labs equipped with shared instrumentation and benches, plus meeting and event facilities and hybrid work solutions.
Go-to-market
Direct sales of workspace, lab space and event bookings through campus locations and the company website, combined with community programming and events (over 4,000 events, programs and gatherings a year, including Venture Café's Thursday Gathering), government and institutional partnerships, and consulting engagements with innovation districts and public-private partners.
Entrepreneurs, startups, scale-ups, corporations and corporate innovation teams, venture capital funds, research and science/technology teams, academic institutions, and public and civic entities, including governments running innovation globalization programs.
Geography
Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the first location opened in 1999 at 238 Main Street in Kendall Square. Campuses listed span North America (Boston, Cambridge, Providence, Philadelphia, St. Louis), Europe (Berlin, Rotterdam, Warsaw) and Asia (Fukuoka, Tokyo); the company states it operates across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
History
CIC opened in 1999 in 2,700 square feet in Kendall Square and moved in April 2001 to 18,000 square feet at One Broadway, whose office design received the Boston Society of Architects Honor Award for Design Excellence for 2000. It doubled in size twice by 2004, reaching 71,000 square feet and 75 companies. A December 2006 transformer fire in an NSTAR electrical vault beneath One Broadway closed the building and CIC for five weeks, forcing emergency relocation of 150 resident companies, including Google, into MIT-provided space. CIC housed 170 companies by August 2008 and had grown to more than 500 companies by July 2013. In May 2013 it announced CIC St. Louis, its first expansion outside Massachusetts, sized for up to 100 companies at full occupancy. In February 2018 it leased 90,000 square feet at Broadway and Main in Kendall Square, and in March 2018 closed a $58 million funding round from HB Reavis. In 2020 CIC founded CIC Health and opened campuses in Tokyo and Warsaw; in 2021 CIC Health was contracted by Massachusetts to run mass vaccination sites at Gillette Stadium, Fenway Park and later the Hynes Convention Center.
Risks & controversies
A December 2006 transformer fire in an electrical vault in the basement of its One Broadway building shut the facility for five weeks and required emergency relocation of the 150 companies then resident, illustrating the operational dependence of the business on individual leased buildings and their infrastructure.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 14
launches, deals, and filingsFounder Tim Rowe was honored with the Japanese Foreign Minister's Award in 2024; he has also been named a Boston Globe Tech Power Player.
Denyse Medlenka, who joined as Chief People Officer in 2022, transitioned to COO and then President in 2024 and serves as CEO; Brian Dacey, President from 2010 to 2024, became Vice Chair and Managing Director.
Victor Mulas became CIC's first Chief Innovation Officer in 2024, leading Innovation Ecosystem Services and serving as President of CIC Catalyst.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts contracted CIC Health to operate mass COVID-19 vaccination centers at Gillette Stadium, Fenway Park, and later the Hynes Convention Center.
CIC founded CIC Health, a subsidiary managing COVID-19 testing sites, handling scheduling and logistics while contracted physicians and hospital workers performed procedures.
CIC closed a $58 million round of funding from HB Reavis to grow its coworking hubs globally.
$58M source ↗
CIC signed a lease for 90,000 square feet at the corner of Broadway and Main in Kendall Square, including a large street-facing video screen, near Kendall/MIT station.
The Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency reported that Cambridge Innovation Center was expanding to the Netherlands.
CIC announced its first location outside Massachusetts, in St. Louis, expected to house up to 100 companies at full occupancy.
A major transformer fire in an NSTAR electrical vault in the basement of One Broadway closed the building and CIC for five weeks; the 150 resident companies, including Google, were relocated on an emergency basis into space provided by MIT.
CIC's new One Broadway office design received the Honor Award for Design Excellence from the Boston Society of Architects for 2000.
CIC was founded in 1999 by MIT graduates Timothy Rowe and Andrew Olmsted, opening in 2,700 square feet at 238 Main St in Kendall Square, Cambridge.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Ciccic.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Cic do?
- CIC operates innovation campuses offering workspace, labs and event space, plus advisory services for building innovation ecosystems.
- Who founded Cic?
- Cic was founded by Tim Rowe.
- Who are Cic's investors?
- Cic's investors include Slater Technology Fund.
- Where is Cic headquartered?
- Cic is headquartered in Cambridge, US.