Portland Oregon startups, tech, news, events, jobs, and community

Just a quick reminder that it is, in fact, Election Day for the 2026 midterms. Which means tonight is Election Night 2026. And that’s exactly why our friends at Graze built the site. To monitor the Bluesky chatter regardless of where you’re voting. So if you need somewhere to follow along in the public discourse surrounding US midterm elections, you’ve got one.

You buy the list. You filter the list. And you start working it. And suddenly it dawns on you… What if the accounts you want aren’t on that list in the first place…? That’s the pitch from Bend startup Topsail for its product called CHARTER. “Your market isn’t sitting in a lead database,” the page says. So CHARTER configures a custom sourcing engine for your team.

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

Churchill Capital Corp XI Shareholders Approve Business Combination with Agility Robotics | Agility

At a special meeting held today, Churchill XI shareholders approved the business combination (the “Transaction”) and all related proposals. The Transaction received overwhelming support, with more than 84% of votes cast voting in favor.

Now I know I’m always a bit dubious about lists from folks like WalletHub and U-Haul. But I’m willing to suspend that disbelief a minute or two when the list comes from Stripe. Because they have direct access to the data about how much folks are using Stripe Atlas to form their corporations. And while corporate formation isn’t an actual indicator of startup activity, it’s still an interesting leading metric. So I’m sharing.

You’ve been meaning to get to this. I know you have. And there’s always a perfectly good reason to put it off. But applications for SXSW Pitch 2027 close on Friday, November 13, 2026. So this is your nudge. If you’ve got a startup that belongs on that stage, now’s the time to get it submitted.

Agility, the Oregon company that spun out of Oregon State University, has been heading for the public markets since June. That’s when it announced plans to go public via SPAC at a $2.5 billion pre-money equity valuation. Well, the vote just happened. Churchill Capital Corp XI shareholders approved the merger at a special meeting on November 2, 2026.

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

Oregon by the Numbers 2026 for Rural Small Business Owners

The Ford Family Foundation released the ninth edition of Oregon by the Numbers on Aug. 31, 2026. It includes a profile for each of the state’s 36 counties and measures of community well-being, with rural and urban comparisons wherever the data allows. It’s important to note that technically the report counts every city and town as rural except those inside six designated urban centers, and it puts Rural Oregon at 1,248,396 people out of 4,254,293 statewide. Also, it is a snapshot rather than a diagnostic tool.