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Portland Seed Fund unveils its inaugural portfolio class

Rick Turoczy on July 19, 2011

It’s the inaugural class of Portland Seed Fund. More than 120 applied. Only eight made the cut. But who are the companies that convinced PSF to invest?

Well, today is the day we find out. The companies that made the cut are mostly tech—and one apparel company. Okay. Enough jibber jabber. Who is the first class of the Portland Seed Fund? Let’s take a look.

  • 4-Tell provides Amazon.com-esque “people who bought this also bought…” functionality to storefronts far smaller than Amazon.
  • Startup Weekend Portland winner AudioName (@audioname) lets you record the pronunciation of your name, in your voice, and share it with your contacts. (See AudioName on Meet the Startup)
  • Geoloqi (@geoloqi) offers an API and mobile applications that lets users share where they were, where they are, and where they will be.
  • If you want to motivate your customer service team, Hively (@teamhively) provides a simple and entertaining way of gathering customer feedback. (See Hively on Meet the Startup)
  • InvestorInMe uses simple, straightforward questions to help determine your risk tolerance for investing—and suggests companies you might like. (See InvestorInMe on Meet the Startup)
  • Vizify provides new ways of looking at your resume—by creating intriguing data visualizations.
  • Mixing Portland’s love of technology and comics, Zinofile hopes to make a big splash in online media.

Who was the eighth company? Okay okay. It was an apparel company. Not a tech company. But still. They made the cut so I wanted you to know. It was Homeschool Snowboarding (@HMSCHL) creates highly breathable snowboarding outerwear featuring Cocona Xcellerator technology.

Another interesting point? Individual investors comprise a third of the total fund.

“It’s a great day for Portland startup businesses,” said Portland Mayor Sam Adams during the announcement.

I couldn’t agree more.

We’ll be keeping an eye on these folks throughout the program and sharing their stories as they progress.

For more information, visit the Portland Seed Fund, like the Portland Seed Fund on Facebook, or follow the new @pdxseedfund Twitter account.

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

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  11. Scott Krager July 26, 2011 at 11:05 am

    Hi Amber, heard you pitch at OAF, glad to hear about all the fundage!

    PIE looks great, but we have a little office space and I think are just going to hack away on our own this summer, bootstrapping-it-style.

  12. Amber Case July 25, 2011 at 10:28 am

    Scott, have you thought about applying to PIE? We’ll be working there as peer-mentors during the Sept 1st class. It’d be great to see you there!

  13. Scott Krager July 22, 2011 at 4:39 pm

    Congrats to all the new seed fund companies! I had a blast going through the seed fund application process, and while we didn’t end up in the group, it was well worth taking a shot at.

    Looking forward to demo day.

  14. Meena vohra July 20, 2011 at 9:45 pm

    Blessings n congrats—small step towards great going !! AudioNamepu

  15. Meena vohra July 20, 2011 at 9:43 pm

    Blessings n congrats—small step towards great going !!

  16. Arpana July 20, 2011 at 7:26 am

    Congratulations to AudioName!

  17. TJ July 19, 2011 at 7:09 pm

    Congratulations to VIZIFY

  18. Meh July 19, 2011 at 6:24 pm

    Um, where are the “highly-scalable businesses”? I see a lot of services and a niche apparel company.

  19. Angela Jackson July 19, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    cool update- Amber Case, CEO of Geoloqi will be joining me on the show.

  20. Angela Jackson July 19, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    If you want more, listen in tomorrow on OPB's Think Out Loud on Starting Up (~9:30 am Wed). Better yet – email/tweet ahead to the show and get the conversation going. We'd love to hear from the start-up community.

    http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/starting-up/

  21. Dylan Anderson July 19, 2011 at 4:12 pm

    Congrats to Ken Levy and 4-tell. Good people.

  22. Arrs July 19, 2011 at 12:18 pm

    Vizify rocks my socks.

Comments are closed.