Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
VC investment in Oregon is down in 2026 so far – Portland Business Journal
For the second quarter, investors pumped $225 million into Oregon startups across 21 deals, according to the report. That compares to the second quarter of last year when $652.6 million was invested in Oregon startups across 40 deals.
Startup Train – Seattle Tech Week Edition · Luma
Join founders, builders, investors, and startup operators as we board the 8:30AM Amtrak train from Portland Union Station and turn the journey into a rolling startup event on our way to Seattle Tech Week. This isn’t just transportation. It’s several hours of networking, collaboration, and founder feedback with some of the best entrepreneurs in the Pacific Northwest.
Agents Don’t Click: Why Agentic AI Is an Infrastructure Crisis | The AI Journal
Now the fastest-growing class of enterprise “user” has no browser, no fingers, and no concept of business hours. Gartner predicts 40% of enterprise applications will embed task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from less than 5% in 2025. The question isn’t whether agents will transform enterprise workflows—that’s already happening.
From Tokenmaxxing to Tokenminimizing — TokenJam
A year ago the smart move was to consume as much as your subscription would give you. Today the smart move is to consume less of it on things that were never helping you. That is the whole shift in one sentence, and it is bigger than a pricing change. It is a change in how developers relate to tokens.
Portland’s U.S. Custom House building for sale after averting foreclosure – oregonlive.com
U.S. Custom House is newly listed by the brokers at Newmark, who’ve shepherded several of Portland’s big office buildings through the market’s valley of darkness during the past few years. Think Montgomery Park’s staggering 87% decline in value when the office complex sold for $33 million in 2024. Or the 67% plunge for PacWest when the skyscraper sold for $55.7 million last October.
July Fintech PDX Meetup!, Thu, Jul 9, 2026, 6:30 PM | Meetup
If you’re working in a community bank, credit union, or fintech, this is a chance to step away from the day to day and connect with others working through the same challenges. Think digital transformation, vendor partnerships, core systems, data, and where the industry is going next.
How Donkey Kong toppled Atari – The Silicon Underground
In July 1981, at the height of Pac-Man fever, Nintendo released its third stand up arcade game. This game, Donkey Kong, took over as the most popular arcade game in the world, but it had a lasting repercussions. It irreversibly changed the course of the home console market, and whether you know it or not, you are still feeling those effects today. Donkey Kong played a direct role in Nintendo toppling Atari.
To promote more housing, cities and states target parking minimums • Oregon Capital Chronicle
Oregon has also taken sweeping action, enacting a law in 2023 that prohibits or restricts parking minimums in 48 cities and three counties located in the state’s eight metropolitan regions with populations of at least 50,000.
Data for Agents
An agent that can’t recover from a broken API call, or a workflow it has never seen, is not really an agent. It is an autocompleter with tools. Getting from one to the other is a data problem: software engineering traces, tool-use failures, multi-step reasoning, retrieval, safety, user simulation, workflow execution, and eventually physical world interaction. That is where NVIDIA Nemotron’s open data products live.
StrateSea Technology: Building the Intelligent Brain for Autonomous Subsea Operations – Elevate Capital
StrateSea grew out of the intersection of my career in oceanography, AI, and building technology inside large organizations. I had spent years working with complex sensor data and later leading teams focused on making advanced analytics useful and accessible to real users.
In San Francisco, Some Home Sellers Now Ask for OpenAI or Anthropic Stock – The New York Times
Even before OpenAI and Anthropic hold initial public offerings, the artificial intelligence companies — which are based in San Francisco and leading the A.I. boom — are distorting the city’s housing market. Sellers are asking for pre-I.P.O. stock as payment for homes, property prices are surging as buyers bet that whatever they overpay today will look cheap tomorrow, and landlords are pushing out tenants to sell into the hotter market.
(2009) Portland Economic Development Strategy passes, City formally recognizes open source, mobile, coworking, and startup communities
Something very important happened late in the day: Portland’s City Council unanimously passed the Portland Economic Development Strategy. Why is this so momentous? Well, aside from being the first publicly recognized economic strategy for Portland in 15 years, it’s the first time that Portland has formally recognized the open source, mobile, coworking, and startup community. And that’s a big step forward.
Expensify’s AI Expands to Expense Automation, Spend Insights, and Agents
Expensify, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXFY), the easiest way to manage expenses, corporate cards, and travel, today announced expanded capabilities for Concierge AI, enabling customers to configure their Expensify accounts, automate expense management tasks, and analyze spend using natural language through email, text, or directly in the Expensify app.
Portland Issues: What’s Next for Oregon’s Prosperity (Virtual) — Better Portland
Join us for an engaging conversation with Curtis Robinhold as he shares insights into the Governor’s Prosperity Council—its purpose, the recommendations that emerged from the process, and what comes next for Oregon’s economic future.
Dorkbot PDX: July Edition, Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 6:30 PM | Meetup
DorkbotPDX is a laid-back meetup and show-and-tell for those who make, modify and use technical tools to weird and imaginative ends. You might run into creative coders, electronic artists, circuit designers, retro computing archaeologists, video game devs, modular synth gearheads and cyberpunk DIYers.
Oregon semiconductor industry at risk, state report says – Portland Business Journal
“Rising costs, workforce constraints, infrastructure limitations, and uncertainty around future expansion threaten the state’s ability to capture its share of projected growth,” the report said.
The AI Wrapper is Dead: 3 Approaches to Verticalization for Early-Stage Startups
This mentality stretches across many categories: Not just AI tools for lawyers – the AI-first law firm. Not just a founder building a software procurement platform: a vision to eventually own the entire supply chain.
Waymo Portland: Pre-Launch Sentiment Data — Tellagence
Most companies get to build their reputation gradually as customers use the product. Waymo doesn’t have that luxury in Portland. Mapping vehicles are already on the street, triggering visual alarm before the company has legal permission to operate — and 3.2K records show residents actively importing San Francisco’s greatest hits: vehicle blocking, sensor “dancing,” disabling tactics, all reframed online as civic protest rather than vandalism. Portland isn’t forming its own opinion. It’s inheriting one.
2026 Party in the Pinot
Get ready for one of the premier summer events of the season! Party in the Pinot brings together great wine, incredible food, amazing company, and unforgettable experiences in the heart of Oregon wine country.
Changing Skills and New Capabilities Required to be an Effective Venture Capitalist
The venture capital industry is undergoing significant change. Rising interest rates have increased competition for investor capital, as safer asset classes now offer more attractive returns. At the same time, technologies such as artificial intelligence, Big Data, and blockchain are transforming not only the startups that venture capitalists invest in, but also the way venture capital firms operate.
More Oregon startup news
