Connecting Health Innovators to Capital: Stout Street Brings Investment to Fitzsimons

By: Fitzsimons Innovation Community

As you know from all the buzz, this year marks a milestone for Fitzsimons Innovation Community—25 years since the opening of our first labs in Bioscience 1 in 2000. In all of those 25 years, and even before that, one of the biggest challenges facing Colorado’s life sciences ecosystem has been clear: access to capital. With major investment firms concentrated on the coasts, Colorado companies often found themselves out of sight and out of mind, forced to travel across the country to meet with investors who might not understand the unique strengths of our state’s innovation ecosystem.

That’s changing. Enter Stout Street Capital and their newly announced Unmet Frontier Fund, backed by the State of Colorado through the Venture Capital Authority. With a mandate to invest in cutting-edge enabling technologies such as quantum, AI, advanced materials, and robotics with applications across large established verticals, including biotech, aerospace, and energy, Stout Street is bringing significant investment resources directly to Colorado’s doorstep. And to bring it even closer to home, they’re planning to establish a physical presence right here on the Fitzsimons Innovation Community campus.

“Being proximate to the companies we’re investing in will allow us deeper integration and better value creation,” explains John Francis, Partner at Stout Street Capital. “Most of our companies are pursuing deep tech endeavors, and most of the founders are researchers and Ph.D. candidates or Ph.D. holders themselves. Our value is to offer acceleration capital as well as the business expertise on top of it to complement, enable, and grow these businesses.”

Building Critical Mass

The Unmet Frontier Fund is targeting $100-200 million in total capital, with approximately half dedicated specifically to life sciences. Over the next four years, Stout Street aims to invest in about 20 companies on campus, potentially creating approximately 500 new jobs and catalyzing about $1 billion in total investment when combined with other funding partners.

Francis emphasizes that critical mass matters in attracting both capital and talent. He sees Colorado’s life sciences ecosystem concentrated in two centers of gravity: Fitzsimons Innovation Community and the City of Aurora as the commercialization hub, and Boulder as the research and incubation hub. The proximity between these two hubs, both geographically and collaboratively, creates unique advantages.

“Fitzsimons hits all the components necessary for companies to be successful—it’s truly an ecosystem,” Francis explains. “We’re close to talent pools, close to clinicians and practitioners. Fitzsimons, being one of the largest schools of medicine and one of the largest clinical research sites in the country, means that for our companies on the therapeutic side or building medical devices, they’re close to their customer, closer to their end customer at the point of care. That gives unique insights and superpowers to succeed in a very competitive environment.”

More Than Just Capital

What sets Stout Street apart is not just the money, but also the hands-on approach. By establishing satellite offices in Denver, Aurora, and Boulder (with a possible fourth in Fort Collins), the firm is positioning itself to be more than a distant investor.

“We want to co-build, we want to be here, we want to see their faces every day,” Francis says, referencing the Silicon Valley principle that investors won’t back companies they can’t bike to. “If they’re out of sight, they’re kind of out of mind. Being physically present is critically important. There’s a lot of firefighting going on in the earlier stages of a company’s life, and being here allows us faster turnaround times when mitigating issues.”

The firm brings horizontal services that early-stage deep tech companies often lack—everything from managing books to go-to-market strategies and market mapping. For founders focused on groundbreaking science, this business infrastructure can be transformative.

Stout Street is focused on emerging technologies where Colorado already has competitive advantages. Francis is particularly excited about quantum computing and the intersection of AI and life sciences.

“What excites us in Colorado is more broadly personized healthcare with a refined focus on cell and gene therapy, AI-enabled digital health, and accelerated drug development using AI and quantum,” he explains. “AI models for organoids, creating digital twins of patients and running accelerated simulations of trials. These are things that can fundamentally change how the industry operates and unlock value in healthcare.”

The Collaborative Colorado Advantage

When asked what differentiates Colorado’s ecosystem, Francis returns to a theme that resonates across the state, and definitely one we’re familiar with here on our campus: collaboration over competition.

“The biggest difference between some of these other ecosystems and ours is we’re fairly collaborative,” he says. “We don’t have a huge landscape of investors yet, so we’re more welcoming. We want others to come here and invest alongside us. We are not here to compete with anybody. We welcome other investors with open arms if they want to be here with us in the trenches.”

This collaborative spirit isn’t just nice to have; it’s a survival skill that Francis believes will allow Colorado to not just survive but excel. “People don’t realize that we’re all social and we all need to work together to succeed. That’s our biggest edge.”

Looking ahead, Francis sees Colorado breaking into the top five life sciences ecosystems within the next five to ten years, getting ahead of established markets by leveraging strengths in quantum and AI technologies. “Those ecosystems are definitely behind on the quantum technologies front. Quantum and AI hybrid simulations will allow us to leapfrog some of these other health ecosystems.”

A Natural Partnership

For Fitzsimons Innovation Community, the partnership with Stout Street Capital represents more than just access to funding. It’s about creating a uniquely attractive environment that keeps companies rooted and growing in Colorado. It’s about ensuring that when startups envision their growth trajectory, they can see a path forward right here, supported by investors who understand their technology, their market, and their needs.

As we celebrate 25 years of innovation at Fitzsimons Innovation Community, this commitment to connecting innovators with capital marks an exciting new chapter. The campus has always provided exceptional lab space, proximity to world-class research and clinical care, and a collaborative community. Now, with dedicated investment partners committed to our ecosystem’s success, we’re addressing one of the final pieces of the puzzle.

“This campus has so much room to grow,” Francis says. “We’re looking at some of these companies scaling to thousands of employees. For us, Fitzsimons is a great place because they can grow organically, and there’s place-based stickiness which allows us to meet our mandates from the state where we’re keeping the companies that we’re growing here.”

For companies considering where to build their future, the message is clear: Colorado, and Fitzsimons Innovation Community specifically, offer not just world-class science and facilities, but increasingly, the capital and support to bring bold ideas to life.

To learn more about the brand-new Stout Street Unmet Frontier Fund, check out the press release.