Month: April 2025

It’s been great seeing more folks organizing programming for the growing interest in AI. There’s AI Portland, Portland AI Tinkerers, PDX AI Demo Nights from Oregon Venture Fund, random AI content here and there, and now — a brand new one — Portland AI Engineers.

Time flies. It seems like just yesterday that a young Oregon UAS Accelerator was opening applications for its first cohort of companies. And now, they’re already accepting applications for their next one. If you’re working on anything even remotely related to drones, it’s well worth considering.

One of the best things about having one of the leading TiE chapters in town — TiE Oregon — is that the network of TiE organizations often combine efforts to showcase startups on the global level. Like TiE Women. And TiE University. And this is one of those times where the regional competition is sending a Portland company to TiE Global Summit. Portland startup EaziStep walked away with the win.

This one is making me nostalgic in the best of ways. Dayo, the new app that helps you curtail your social media usage, launched this week. And they had a Top 10 showing on Product Hunt. But they’re not stopping there. They’re throwing a launch party this week to celebrate their accomplishments.

I love it when people take the opportunity to build upon an idea. So of course, I was overjoyed to hear that NedSpace was taking on the effort of arranging a pre-party and an after party for our next Portland startup community gathering — especially given that the main event is sold out.

I’ve been bemoaning the fact that I don’t have a go-to quintessential Portland startup to reference on a regular basis. I think that all changed today. Portland startup Hydrolix — founded by serial entrepreneur Marty Kagan — just raised $80 million. And the reason they were able to do that in this market? By increasing their revenue eight-fold with some name brand customers.