I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately about broadening the spectrum of Silicon Florist coverage. To cover more than just tech. Because there is all kinds of interesting stuff going on around here. And some recent news seemed like the perfect excuse to start doing that. You see, Portland Seed Fund and Starve Ups alum Sightbox has been acquired by Johnson & Johnson.
I first encountered Sightbox through an introduction from one of their advisors, formerly-Portland-based-but-still-Portlandy-at-heart founder Darius “Bubs” Monsef. I remembered thinking it odd that Darius was introducing me to a product company since he had spent his startup time in tech — including a class of Y Combinator. But I trusted his intuition. So when founder Travis Rush reached out to me directly soon thereafter, I grabbed coffee with him.
It quickly became apparent why Sightbox was attracting attention. They were on to something with their subscription based contact service. In a way that competitors hadn’t quite figured out. And they already had some early traction. All they needed was a little capital to speed things up. Soon Portland Seed Fund, Rogue Venture Partners, and Starve Ups stepped up to help the company.
The rest is history. And apparently, pretty good history, at that. According to The Oregonian, “Sightbox did not report terms of its sale, but Rogue said it was the best deal yet from its portfolio.”
So good news all around. Solid exit. Happy investors. And another Portland success story.
For more information, visit Sightbox.
