Funding is only one of the impressive things about the Lytics announcement today

If you haven’t caught the news, Lytics announced that they have raised a $7 million Series A led by Comcast Ventures, bringing their total funding to over $9 million. And while that’s headline worthy, there are a number of other things about this announcement that pique my interest—probably even more so than the cash.

First off, this marks another step forward for the next generation of Portland tech startups. Way back when, in the Dark Ages of the Portland startup scene, there was Jive Software. And a handful of others. Then, we had a strong showing with the likes of Puppet Labs, Elemental, Urban Airship, Janrain, Jama, Act-On, Simple… but then things got a bit quiet again. Which had some folks wondering if the scene around here was just a fluke. Or just a moment in time. But Lytics—along with peers like Cloudability, Orchestrate, AppThwack, Opal, and Snapflow—is debunking that perception. Building great teams and tackling big horizontal problems that plague a wide variety of businesses.

Second, Lytics is attracting experienced executive talent. Because of the work of the aforementioned generation of startups, Portland is becoming a scene with a safety net—and plenty of gigs for serial startup executives. While it’s still not easy, Lytics is proving that you can attract the executive talent you need. Especially if the problem you’re attacking is big and interesting. And if you’ve got a likeminded group of peers from companies like Webtrends.

Third, I think we might have a little cluster of marketing automation going here. Portland has always been a strong agency and marketing town. So it just stands to reason that technology would follow suit. Homegrown solutions like Act-On, Janrain, Attensa, Little Bird, Chirpify, Teak, and Opal are thriving. And regional offices like AppNexus and Good Data are growing. Lytics is just the latest to signal this trend.

Fourth, the Voyager Portland portfolio only gets stronger. While finding funding has become more straightforward, proving that Portland can do something with that money remains a hurdle. So when we get money from outside of town, we have a lot to prove. Seattle’s Voyager Capital—along with other investors outside of town like Madrona, True Ventures, First Round, Founders Co-Op, and Foundry Group—has made multiple bets on the Portland startup scene. Growing companies like Lytics, Elemental, Act-On, and Chirpify will only improve their already glowing perception of what’s happening in Portland.

Fifth, Lytics revealed that they have a great customer, right here in town. One of the common complaints about Portland is that—beyond Nike and Intel—there aren’t viable customers here in town for the types of solutions we’re building. Today, Lytics revealed that they’re finding great local customers, like The Clymb.

Honestly, I could go on and on. But I just wanted to highlight that the funding is just the tip of the iceberg.

For more information, visit Lytics.

[Full disclosure: Lytics is an alum of PIE. I am the cofounder and general manager of PIE. And I’d love it if you would tune in for the PIE Demo Day livestream on October 24.]

Published by Rick Turoczy

More than mildly obsessed with the Portland startup community. Founder and editor at Silicon Florist. Cofounder and general manager at PIE. Follow me on Twitter: @turoczy View all posts by Rick Turoczy