Portland startup, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
It’s always nice to see Portland folks creating content together. But it’s even better when that content is presented on a larger platform. That’s why I was really happy to hear that Dylan Boyd of R/GA Ventures was going to chat with Marshall Kirkpatrick as part of The Sprinklr Coffee Club.
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It seems like just yesterday that we were hearing about a new accelerator in town, WeWork Labs. Hard to believe that it’s already been a year. But even in that short amount of time the program has already impacted more than 60 founders. That alone is a reason to celebrate. And so they’re doing just that.
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With some of the holiday season celebrations bisecting two weeks in a row, it’s been a bit of a slow end to 2019. And a couple of slow news weeks to boot. With that in mind, I thought I’d take a couple of minutes to share some of the most popular Silicon Florist posts from the past year, if only to provide a reminder of what the community accomplished and to look forward to what’s in store for 2020.
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Used to be, the startup community made it a regular habit of showing up to Portland City Council meetings to show support for issues that were important to us. That’s why things like the Portland Seed Fund exist. It’s been awhile, but since the opportunity presented itself, a bunch of startup community folks showed up at City Council yesterday to hear the report from the Prosper Portland Inclusive Business Resource Network, a community of practice composed on numerous organizations in the Portland area who work to support entrepreneurs.
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While I spend the vast majority of my time heads down focused inwardly on the Portland startup community, I do realize that, from time to time, it makes sense to pick my head up and see what’s going on elsewhere. That’s why I was happy to see the First Round State of Startups 2019 making the, ahem, rounds.
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A company manages to land early stage capital and, in so doing, decides to move their headquarters from their founding city to a city closer to their investor. Of course you’ve heard it. It’s something that regularly happened to Portland companies not so long ago. But today, there’s a new twist. Instead of companies leaving town, folks are starting to relocate those headquarters to Portland. And this time, at least part of that decision was thanks to a local investor.
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Apparently, it just takes a little while for an idea to gain traction. After years of founders bemoaning a lack of early stage funding, a new crop of early stage venture funds are taking shape here in Portland. First, 1859 Ventures launched a new early stage venture fund. Now Cowen Partners Venture Fund has launched.
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When folks are talking about startup activity, there are generally a few topics that jump to the fore: starting companies, funding companies, and liquidity events, the euphemism for that point in time when founders, investors, and ideally employees generate wealth from their efforts. But what if that last event — that exit — could also benefit the folks who find the most value in what that company was providing? That’s the concept with Exit to Community.
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One of the issues with the current state of the Portland startup community is the negative of a positive. The positive? Formerly early stage funds have found success, returned multiples on invested capital, matured, raised larger funds, and are now writing larger checks for Seed and Series A rounds.
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If you’ve been around the Portland startup community for any amount of time, you realize that many of the startups in our midst generally have a significant period of time between their founding date and when they experience a liquidity event like acquisition or private equity. (Or I guess there’s always on IPO. But seriously, who am I kidding?) Suffice it to say, “overnight success” is not a term that has much traction here.
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