Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
Applications Now Open for the 2025 Bend Venture Conference — Bend Venture Conference
The 2025 Early Stage competition will be open exclusively to Oregon-based companies, strengthening BVC’s mission to spotlight and support local innovation. Additionally, a cash award will be reserved for one standout startup headquartered in Central Oregon, emphasizing the region’s ongoing commitment to homegrown entrepreneurship.
A New Kind of AI Model Lets Data Owners Take Control | WIRED
A NEW KIND of large language model, developed by researchers at the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), makes it possible to control how training data is used even after a model has been built.
The Founder’s Guide to Building a V1 of Customer Success
A CS leader who has built the function from the ground up shares where founders should start — from how to hire to the most important metrics to track.
TYE Students Take the Stage at Globals + What’s Ahead for Fall
We are proud to share the incredible journey of Team Hive from Lincoln High School, who represented Oregon at the 17th annual TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE) Global Competition held on June 19th and 20th in Washington, D.C.!
Portland Accessibility and User Experience Meetup (PDX A11Y UX) – Accessibility summer social » Calagator: Portland’s Tech Calendar
Bring yourself and your curiosity about accessibility to The Zipper, located at NE 27th and Sandy Boulevard. The Zipper features a vibrant food court with bars, restaurants, indoor and outdoor seating, and nearby fire pits. The food options vary, from fried chicken to tacos. Our summer social is an opportunity to informally connect with like-minded individuals who share a passion for digital accessibility. We can’t wait to meet you!
Introducing Airship Agents: Your Partners in Continuous Goal Optimization | Airship
That’s why we built a suite of intelligent AI agents to tackle these challenges in concert and help teams focus on what matters most: continuous goal optimization. You can now automate the entire creation-to-optimization process — from cross-channel orchestration to hyper-personalization to growth experimentation — ushering in a new era of scalable efficiency for customer journey optimization.
With Federal Grants on the Line, Portland Leaders Weigh Whether to Comply With Trump’s Anti-DEI Directives – Portland Mercury
City administrator says Portland currently relies on $387 million in federal grants. The city stands to lose federal money if it doesn’t slash its equity-focused programs.
Portland General Electric layoffs impact dozens of workers Tuesday
A spokesperson confirmed the staff reductions, which impacted 53 of the company’s employees, to KOIN 6 News on Wednesday. PGE also closed 154 open positions and closed 123 contract worker positions.
Buyer of Portland’s U.S. Bancorp Tower, aka ‘Big Pink,’ plans millions in renovations – oregonlive.com
“Portland is not organically attracting businesses,” Swickard told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “People are leaving Portland, unfortunately, because of the tax problem. So in order to bring them to Portland, you have to do something extraordinarily special for them and that is unique to a tenant.”
On the last decade of Y Combinator | by Jared Heyman | Medium
The good news is every leading indicator of YC batch quality that we track at Rebel continues improving over time despite growing batch sizes, from YC application acceptance rates to fundraising progress to founder quality metrics. So, we believe YC’s future success will far outpace the outcomes it’s achieved thus far.
Nvidia Is the World’s First $4 Trillion Company – WSJ
Nvidia, based in Santa Clara, Calif., designs the chips, known as graphics processing units, or GPUs, that power the AI industry. The rally in Nvidia’s shares caps a remarkable run and comes barely two years after the company notched a $1 trillion closing valuation for the first time. The AI chip maker, which closed at $162.88 a share and just shy of the $4 trillion mark, is now worth as much as the 214 smallest companies in the S&P 500 combined, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
More Oregon startup news
