Startup and tech news, jobs, and events in Portland and Oregon
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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There’s a running joke among some of the startup community that the best opportunity to get to spend quality time with folks from Portland is to wind up together in another town for an event or some such. Now, I’m happily realizing that sometimes the best way to learn something new about our community is to have someone from outside of town tell you about it. This was recently the case with Anika Horn. And something similar just happened with Anthony Ware, who spent a couple of weeks in Portland, recently.
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The holidays are upon us. And with them, the beginning of the rampant discounting and voracious consumerism of the season. Suffice it to say that I, for one, don’t want you to feel left out. So I thought I would throw a discount your way.
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Earlier this week, Puppet announced that they would be serving as the workspace for more than two dozen early stage Portland startups. For some, this might seem like a surprising move. But in actuality, it’s core to the culture of the company. And has been a hallmark of its existence, ever since Reductive Labs relocated to Portland.
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You know how sometimes things on the Internet just blow up in the most positive of ways? And every so often, a Portland person gets inextricably tied to the ongoings in a way that not only furthers the conversations, but genuinely reflects the amazing caliber of founders that we have in our midst? Well that’s what happened late last week with a tweetstorm from David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails and cofounder of Basecamp (nee 37signals) about the Apple Card credit selection algorithm. And Portland founder Mara Zepeda wound up as part of the conversation.
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If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: being a founder is hard. For everyone. But unfortunately, it’s even more taxing for founders who identify as women, LGBTQIA+, and/or people of color. That’s why I’m a huge fan of the work that Anthony Ware is doing. And as luck would have it, he’s in Portland this week. Focused on your mental wealth.
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While I’m not one to celebrate fundraising for the sake of fundraising, I’m also one to admit that a growing local company raising a single round of financing that’s north of $50 million is still a bit of a rarity. And therefore, notable, at the very least. So I thought I’d capture the coverage of SheerID’s latest round.
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Short note. Even if you’re not a basketball fan, you’ve probably heard the news that Carmelo Anthony is signing with the Portland Trail Blazers. If you are a basketball fan, this is probably feeling a bit like the time that the Blazers signed Pippen. Or maybe that’s just me. In any case, I’m admittedly more interested in ‘Melo’s potential impact off the court. Because when he’s not on the hardwood, he’s also an aspiring investor—with a successful exit. So this could potentially be an interesting addition to the Portland startup community, as well. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Sometimes, it takes an outside perspective to help you better understand your world. Earlier this year, Portland had the opportunity to host the Startup Champions Network, a group of startup ecosystem builders who mentor one another on what’s working in their respective communities. And as much as it was a pleasure to introduce folks to what was happening in Portland, getting feedback and insights from a variety of viewpoints was the true reward of putting the event together.
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