Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
Why Startups Die – by Mathias Klenk – Tech Founder Stack
Startups have a notorious failure rate – some estimates say 9 out of 10 startups eventually fail. Yet, contrary to what many first-time founders expect, startups rarely fail because a giant competitor swoops in or because of some external “homicide.” Instead, most startups die by “suicide,” meaning their demise is self-inflicted by internal issues.
Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence – The White House
To win, United States AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation. But excessive State regulation thwarts this imperative.
Factorial Capital: $25 Million Fund II Closed To Advance Investments In Frontier AI Startups
Hartman founded Factorial Capital after observing that the most technically skilled founders often had unique visibility into emerging technologies and were well-positioned to identify promising companies well before they attracted traditional venture capital. His goal was to structure a model that fosters closer alignment with those founders and leverages their technical expertise at the earliest stages of company formation.
8 Takeaways from Carta’s State of Seed Report
This year, we asked our friends at Carta what trends they’re seeing in the markets for seed stage startups. They kindly produced a comprehensive 40-slide report drawn from an aggregated and anonymized sample of Carta customer data. You can download it in full from the Carta website. If you’re a founder you’re going to want to check it out.
Moore Admired Award: Salt & Straw CEO Kim Malek – Portland Business Journal
In a “moment of desperation,” she cashed out her 401(k), held a garage sale and maxed out her credit cards. She still didn’t have enough money. Her “brand new” boyfriend put his house up for collateral so she could get a loan from the city of Portland for $40,000. She opened her first cart and repaid the loan in less than a year.
GeekWire Gala recap: Humans and robots party together in Seattle at our geeky holiday celebration – GeekWire
Humans and robots rubbed shoulders and partied Thursday night at the 2025 GeekWire Gala as our annual holiday extravaganza drew more than 750 members of Seattle’s tech community to the Showbox SoDo.
Eugene startup DevSwarm enables parallel multi-agent coding – Portland Business Journal
What if one tool could connect all the different AI coding tools into one place and make it easier for developers to run work in parallel with the agents of their choice?
2025 Investment Highlights — Oregon Venture Fund
We also crossed a meaningful milestone: more than $200M of OVF capital invested directly into Oregon and southern Washington companies – entrepreneurs building exceptional businesses right here at home. Together, those companies have gone on to raise more than $2.1B in total capital.
