It’s not odd that venture funds go quiet from time to time. As they need to cycle through their own fundraising and whatnot. But it’s always nice to see them starting to make noise again. And Portland Seed Fund is doing that in multiple ways with their news today.

Whether you’re old enough to remember the screeching tones of a modem followed by a cheerful “You’ve got mail!” or not, you’re still likely to recognize the impact that AOL had on our access to online resources in the early days of the Web. The founder of AOL, Steve Case, (who now heads up Revolution and their Rise of the Rest efforts) was recently in DC addressing the US House Entrepreneurial Caucus along with Victor Hwang of Right to Start. Their advice…? Double down on entrepreneurship.

The trend continues. Another month, another handoff for the Demolicious belt. This month, Fanwagn managed to snag the win from the March 2024 title holder Ecobadlandz. Miss attending this one…? As luck would have Josh Grenevitch captured video of the event and cut together a quick recap.

Even if it there wasn’t a whole bunch of nostalgia wrapped up in this post, I would still be recommending Reignition, a new book written by Dave Hersh. Part memoir, part collection of case studies, part workbook, this quick read takes stuck founders through a clear path through getting their startups unstuck — and provides cautionary tales for founders who may be unknowingly hurtling their startups headlong into stuck-ness.

Granted, in a remote-first world it can be difficult to accurately define an “Oregon” company, but given that the CTO lives here, Portland Seed Fund participated in this round, and they went through PIE, I’m calling the news that Trace just closed a $2 million Pre-Seed round “local startup news.”

Having worked in the tech industry for as long as I have, I’m super familiar with noncompete agreements. You know, the idea that because you learned something at a place you worked, you’re not allowed to go somewhere else that will take advantage of that learning. Or that you can’t go out and start a company based on an opportunity you uncovered through that learning. Well, now those agreements may no longer have any teeth.

Whenever anyone talks about AI in the Portland startup community, Reclaim.ai immediately jumps to mind. They’ve been at this AI thing longer than most. And they’ve been using AI to resolve a common but particularly thorny problem: scheduling meetings. And, more often than not, rescheduling meetings. Now, they’ve released their latest feature, Smart Meetings — but the data they used to inform the feature may be even more interesting.