Portland Oregon startups, tech, news, events, jobs, and community
Portland startup and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
I shared a piece I read the other day that postulated that incubators and accelerators are “out” and that startup studios are “in.” But what, exactly, is a startup studio? Luckily, we have one of the most prominent startup studios — Pioneer Square Labs — right here in the Pacific Northwest. And as PSL is now five years old, GeekWire recently took the time to assess its impact.
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“Risk averse. Conservative.… Out of touch.” They’re all complaints I’ve heard from Portland startup founders when describing the earliest stages of raising capital around these parts. But I always assumed that Seattle — with its extensive tech presence of major headquarters and massive regional offices — was a better environment. Apparently, it’s not. Those quoted comments are Seattle startup founders describing their Angel investment community.
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As you’ve likely seen, I’ve been covering this Portland technology and startup community beat for a dozen years. GeekWire has been covering the Pacific Northwest technology scene for equally long. Malia Spencer has been focused on the broader Portland startup community for more than five years. So it’s great to get a new voice on the scene. Meet Daniel Li, who writes The DL.
While the term unicorn has lost a bit of its luster as of late, it’s still an impressive milestone for any company to achieve a $1 billion valuation, but especially for a northwest company to do so. That’s why it was interesting to see Portland Seed Fund portfolio company Auth0 announce its Series E raise, which officially gives it the unicorn moniker.
One of the most successful early stage startups in Portland isn’t actually in Portland. It’s not even in Oregon. But it is just across the river in Vancouver, Washington. So it’s definitely part of our community. That startup is Hubb. And they just moved into a new space.
Call it the Pacific Northwest. Call it Cascadia. Call it… um… uh… oh yeah, the I-5 corridor. Call it even more things. Call it whatever you want. But if you want to work at a WeWork in our backyard? Well, things just got a whole lot easier. With the WeWork Cascadia Passport.
Vancouver, Washington—our neighbors directly to the north—have gone by any number of names and descriptions over the years. As has the startup community in the ‘Couv’ and its supporting organizations. But all of that may change, now that they’ve revealed an identity designed to serve as the front door for the Vancouver startup community. Meet North Bank Innovations.
As much as I love our Portland companies, I’m even happier when they can expand their markets by exporting their goods and services to other communities. It doesn’t matter if they’re tech, creative, food & beverage… you name it. Being part of the “traded sector” helps Portland. So you can only imagine how happy I was when I heard PitchBlack was being shared with other communities as well. They’ll be in Seattle on Wednesday night as part of Techstars Startup Week Seattle.
It’s pretty common practice to have folks from the north and south visit Oregon. And in recent years, it’s even become common for capital to flow into the state from investors in those neighboring states. But it’s still rare to see Oregon investors expand to other regions. But that’s exactly what Seven Peaks Ventures is doing.
As the world of accelerators continues to mature, we’ll see consolidation and partnering around shared areas of interest—to the benefit of the startups they support. Here in the Northwest, Oregon and Washington are combining forces to help cleantech startups with the Cascadia CleanTech Accelerator, a collaboration between Oregon BEST and the CleanTech Alliance of Washington. Read More
