Barry Schwimmer

Barry Schwimmer is Managing Director of Petros Connecticut Fund, a growth-capital fund he helped launch in December 2015 in partnership with Austin, Texas-based Petros Partners to invest in Connecticut-based businesses. The fund operates as an $18 million vehicle under the state’s Insurance Reinvestment Tax Credit Program, providing capital and operational support to lower middle-market companies across the state. Schwimmer describes himself as an investor across private equity, mezzanine, and senior debt, working directly with entrepreneurs to help structure capital around each company’s specific stage and needs.

Career Highlights

Schwimmer’s investing career dates back more than four decades. He started as a securities analyst at Value Line Investment Survey and then a senior consultant at Andersen Consulting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, before earning an MBA in finance and accounting at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He then spent more than a decade as a partner at two venture capital and private equity firms, Chemical Venture Partners and Commonwealth Capital Partners, and has owned his own investment firm, Stoneybrook Capital, since the mid-1990s.

In 2011, Schwimmer founded the Stamford Innovation Center, a business incubator and co-working space in Stamford, Connecticut, that opened its doors in 2012 in the city’s former municipal building. The center has supported the growth of companies including Arccos Golf, Tru-Optic, eBrevia, US Mobile, Sensify, and Applango. Schwimmer went on to launch Petros Connecticut Fund in 2015, extending his focus on the local entrepreneurial ecosystem into direct growth-capital investing; recent fund investments include Oasis Charger Corporation, a Connecticut-based electric-vehicle charging manufacturer.

Education

Schwimmer holds an MBA in finance and accounting from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, reportedly completed between 1982 and 1984.