In mid-January 2026, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont launched a platform on which a company can find a local creator by field, region and audience as easily as it finds a supplier.
The platform is called C4. It runs at ctcollab.com, and in its press release the state calls it “a modern economic development tool rooted in creativity, community, and connection”. That places it among economic development tools, alongside incentives for startups or manufacturing.
C4 is run by the state and describes creators in the language usually reserved for the business class. That distinguishes it from private influencer marketplaces that sell the same service commercially.
How C4 works
According to the state’s announcement, C4 is a “centralized, searchable database” where creators publish a profile for free, and where companies, organisations and agencies search for partners by field, geography, audience demographics and type of content. Categories range from food and travel through family and lifestyle to culture and business. Registration is free for creators, and the state says new profiles are being added every day.
Lamont himself accompanied the launch with these words: “Connecticut’s story is being told every day by people who live here, work here, and love this place. C4 is about recognizing that power and giving it structure.” The platform is meant to give structure to a market that has so far operated informally.
What the state says about creators
Connecticut talks about creators in the language of economic policy. Anthony Anthony, the state’s Chief Marketing Officer at the time of the launch, said that “creators are no longer a side channel. They are a primary way people discover places, brands, and experiences.” The state has thereby placed creators within the vocabulary of economic development.
Shira Lazar, founder of the show What’s Trending, described the same shift in a post from the Yale Innovation Summit, one session of which was devoted to the creator economy and the future of work. About the Connecticut model she wrote that it means “treating creators as an important part of the state's economic future, not just a marketing trend.” She added the thesis on which the whole model rests: “You don’t have to live in New York or LA anymore to build something meaningful.”
Similar programmes in other states
Connecticut is not alone in this. New Mexico opened a state-backed creative industries initiative, with pre-registration from 2 March to 30 June 2026 and grants in the autumn of the same year, with priority for rural communities. The tool is a grant programme aimed at municipalities, counties and tribal governments. Connecticut and New Mexico differ in mechanism, but they share the assumption that creators belong in a state’s portfolio of economic development.
Lazar’s post also pointed to the local layer on which all of this rests. Mimi Gonzalez, whom she describes in the post as a B2B creator and founder of Creator House, does the invisible work from the ground up, connecting creators in the region. “Creator ecosystems don’t magically appear. They’re built by people willing to invest in community AND put in the work!”
Europe funds sectors, while Czechia treats creators as sole traders
The European approach rests on a different logic. Its main instrument is the Creative Europe programme, with a budget of €2.44 billion for 2021 to 2027, up from €1.47 billion over the previous seven years.
For 2026, the Commission has allocated €380 million. The money goes to sectors and organisations in the areas of Culture, MEDIA and cross-sectoral projects, from film and music to publishing and cultural heritage. This programme does not address the individual creator as a profile on a searchable marketplace.
Czechia has no category for creators. The Economic Strategy 2.0, which the government presented on 20 February 2026, rests on innovation, more attractive taxation of patents, support for startups and tools such as employee stock option plans. It does not mention creators or the creator economy.
First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade Karel Havlíček summed up the strategy with the words, “we want to support investment in innovation and create a stable and predictable environment for business.” In this approach, creators fall under general entrepreneurship and the sole trader regime.
The state takes over the matching layer
The search and matching layer between brands and creators has so far been run by private platforms and agencies. In the US, the state is starting to occupy it and offers it as public infrastructure. Connecticut registers creators, sorts them by field and audience, and makes them available to companies as a searchable resource. The European equivalent runs through cultural grants and general business policy, where the creator is not yet a separate economic category.
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