This study develops and tests a set of novel theoretical predictions about the conditions under which category spanning hybridization is rewarded by external audiences. To do this, we revisit the assumption that comprehensible organizational identities are associated with individual categories. Drawing on empirically validated insights from the study of composite concepts in cognitive psychology, we suggest that audiences may have clear understandings about how categories fit together and cognate schema for evaluating firms that span between them. Based on an empirical examination of venture capital funding in the carbon nanotube industry, we find that startups were rewarded or punished for hybridization, contingent on how they mixed the categories of 'science' and 'technology' in their patents, top management team, and collaborations. Overall, our results show strong support for a composite concepts approach and suggest that research on categorization processes should attend to how category spanning is not just a matter of degree, but a matter of degree across multiple dimensions that can be mixed in ways that align more or less closely with audience understands of inter-category relationships.