As you may have — or may not have — heard, Business Oregon is looking to do a halfway report on the Oregon Innovation Plan, a plan designed to guide the current decade of innovation in Oregon. At the same time, we’re eagerly awaiting the insights and findings from the Governor’s Prosperity Council at midyear. And if I’m reading my watch correctly, we might just be in the middle of creating the next Oregon Capital Scan. So I thought it might be interesting to compare those three efforts — Oregon’s 10 year innovation plan (i.e., what we wanted to happen), the most recent Oregon Capital Scan (i.e., what actually happened), and the feedback from the public to the Prosperity Council (i.e., how folks are feeling currently) — to see if there’s anything of consequence.
Because if you stack the plan from 2021 on top of the measurement from 2025 on top of the sentiment from 2026 — three completely different exercises, conducted by completely different teams, drawing from completely different inputs — you get something that looks awfully consistent.
Which could be a problem. Or could be an opportunity.
What we planned to do: Oregon’s 10-Year Innovation Plan (2021)
tl;dr: Released in February 2021, TEConomy’s 96-page innovation plan for Business Oregon, organized around four strategies — foster ideation, strengthen the ecosystem, catalyze risk capital, brand Oregon.
Oregon’s 10-Year Innovation Plan was released in February 2021, commissioned by Business Oregon and shaped by a 31-member Futures Commission of founders, funders, foundations, universities, anchor employers, and state legislators. Ninety-six pages. Four strategies: 1) Foster ideation; 2) Strengthen the innovation ecosystem; 3) Catalyze access to risk capital; 4) Brand Oregon as “The Place for Innovation.”The Foreword closes with a line that has aged in interesting ways:
Oregon’s unique assets and vibrant innovation economy help define our state’s identity… in fields such as semiconductor manufacturing and sustainable technologies, our anchor firms and vibrant industry clusters help foster an innovative and entrepreneurial culture. However, while these assets have guided economic growth for decades, access to opportunities in innovation-oriented fields has been unequal.
What actually happened — Oregon Capital Scan 2025
tl;dr Released in November 2025, ECONorthwest found Oregon captured 0.8% of national mid-stage software deals and 0.02% of the dollars in 2024 — and got less than 0.002% of CHIPS R&D funding while ranking #2 nationally in semiconductor productivity.
The Oregon Capital Scan 2025 is the latest in a recurring series of statewide capital studies — but the Steering Committee, working with ECONorthwest, describes this edition as “a reset for the series,” contracted with a focus on “clarity, reliability, and transparency in how findings are presented.” Which is a polite way of saying: we’re rebuilding the measurement.
Pick almost any data point and the gap shows up in sharp relief. Three that stuck with me:
- Oregon ranks second in the nation in semiconductor productivity — and received one $250,000 CHIPS R&D grant, less than 0.002% of available R&D funds. Manufacturing awards: $2 billion of $39 billion nationally, mostly to mature companies.
- Oregon software GDP grew 163% since 2013 — outpacing the national rate of 138% — reaching $8.3 billion by 2023. And in 2024, Oregon captured 0.8% of national mid-stage deal count (33 of 3,973) and 0.02% of national mid-stage dollars ($246M of $104.7B).
- University semiconductor spinoff activity occurred in 2015 and 2016. And then, per the report, “ceased thereafter.”
The Capital Scan’s anchor case study is Overwatch Imaging out of Hood River — airborne imaging and AI, founded 2016. The founders’ personal savings funded the first six months. Three years of self-funded growth. The inflection point was an out-of-state seed investor in 2019. The report chose this story deliberately, as the illustration of why Oregon founders bootstrap longer than founders elsewhere: because the capital is harder to access here. So much so, it’s like a vicious cycle or something.
And as the state prepares to work with consultants on the halfway assessment of the 2021 plan, the Capital Scan data should definitely play into that analysis. Because the Capital Scan has proven to be a really good guidepost for “Regardless of all of our optimism, what actually happened…?” around here.
What people want to happen — Prosperity Council survey
tl;dr 1,000+ Oregonians converging on the same diagnosis: capital and coordination are difficult to come by. Worse yet, predictability is even more difficult to find.
Looking forward, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek’s Prosperity Council took the opportunity to solicit the current pulse of the community. The Council’s statewide survey is our most recent feedback on where Oregon currently is. And it pulled in more than 1,000 responses from 35 of Oregon’s 36 counties. (Preliminary findings were released April 7. Final recommendations should be release on or around June 30, 2026.)
The most striking thing to me…? People who do not work in startups described the problems in startuppy sort of language. Without coordination.
- A gas utility executive on permitting and predictability: “disincentivizes entrepreneurs from launching.”
- A Lower Columbia River watershed council director cautioned that the existing capital structure could: “raise the cost of capital for early-stage companies.”
- A Central Oregon hospital system CFO asking for: “locally-driven accelerator programming, seed funding, and tech entrepreneurship programming in rural communities.”
That language — very similar language to the startup community language — showed up unprompted from a gas utility, a watershed, and a rural hospital.
That’s not a coincidence. That’s an opportunity.
Now, we wait
We have the original plan. We have the regular measurement. We have the public sentiment. And soon, we’ll have both the halfway report on the Innovation Plan and the guidance from the Prosperity Council.
But even with all of that, what we still won’t have is the actual coordination that turns all of these converging conversations into one shared move — with shared and collaborative momentum. We’ll just have more words.
But maybe — just maybe — that next part is still ours to write.
