Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
For the vast majority of us, continuing to work as virtual teams shows no end in sight. And that’s presented a bunch of opportunities for startups to equip us with new tools for working in this mode. The latest from the Portland startup community is RendezView.
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Gumroad just released a report on the metrics for its creator community in 2020. While it’s an admitted subset of the broader creator community, it’s an interesting glimpse into dynamics that are likely prevalent throughout the community. Extrapolation being what it is.
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One of the newsletters I make sure to read every week is The DL by Daniel Li. Given his vantage at Madrona, the newsletter tends to focus on trends in venture capital and venture funded companies in the Pacific Northwest. To kick off the new year, Dan put together some slides to recap of the stuff he was tracking in 2020. And it’s a good reminder that there was some decent progress last year, even with all of the weirdness.
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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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For all of the weirdness of 2020, some things in Oregon remained the same. People still built interesting companies. And local investors still supported them. Among them, Cascade Seed Fund wound up adding a dozen companies to its portfolio.
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StreamYard isn’t the only acquisition announcement around these parts, this week. Earlier this week, it was announced that Khoros, a “global leader in digital-first customer engagement software and services” had acquired Beaverton-based Topbox.
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If you’ve been putting off applying for the annual SXSW Pitch event, your procrastination has now been rewarded. The application deadline is now Sunday, January 10, 2021, at 11:59PM PST.
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For the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in a really compelling program hosted at Portland’s Lewis & Clark College over the holiday break. They call it “Winterim.” And it’s designed to expose college students to startups and entrepreneurship through a series of talks, mentorship, and a weeklong sprint to build a concept for a company.
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As mentioned previously today, Portland’s Simple is being shuttered by acquirer BBVA ahead of PNC completing the acquisition of BBVA USA properties. Not only did the move adversely impact many of our fellow Portlanders and the Portland fintech community — as did the similar shuttering of Azlo today — but it also marked the end of a banking story of David and Goliath proportions. Where Goliath won.
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After a long search, Oregon Governor Kate Brown has selected Sophorn Cheang to lead the primary economic development agency for the state of Oregon, Business Oregon.
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