Portland Oregon startups, tech, news, events, jobs, and community

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

The Customer of Venture Capital Isn’t the Founder, It’s the Investor

If a car company blamed consumers for not buying a faulty vehicle, we’d laugh. But in startups, we treat it as noble suffering. Founders and cities rally behind “capital deserts” promising networking events, demo days, and warm intros, instead of facing a simpler truth: if capital isn’t flowing to your region, your product isn’t compelling enough.

One of my favorite things about the Portland startup community is the number of organizations that are focused on helping entrepreneurs. But that doesn’t mean that those organizations aren’t in need of a refresh from time to time. And there’s no better time to make those changes than when new leadership enters the picture. Which is exactly what happened with the Oregon Startup Center.

Remember that new incubator and coworking space in Vancouver, Washington…? Well, they’re open for business and taking applications for folks who are looking for coworking space.

Last week, I got some early reports on a couple of winners at Bend Venture Conference 2025. Now, I have the complete list from the organizers. So I’m going to share it with you. Because you deserve it. Or something. And stuff.

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

Meet Caravel: Pioneering a New Era of Biotechnology with the First Unified Platform for Protein Discovery and Delivery

Caravel Bio, the first joint platform for protein discovery and delivery that enables new applications of synthetic biology, today announces its selection for a $7.8 million award from the U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (NSF TIP). The award assembles a team of world-class engineers to create tools for building proteins with novel chemistries, train more advanced machine learning models on the resulting datasets, and develop new, innovative products across industries.

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

Portland General Electric invests in AI-powered flexibility to speed data center connection | Utility Dive

The utility is working with startup GridCARE to help data centers plug into transmission-constrained grids without waiting for new infrastructure, executives said.

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

🧠 When the Founder Is the Moat

In startups, especially deep-tech and AI, the moat often isn’t data or models. It’s the founder(s).

I’ve written about Senator Ron Wyden any number of times. Not just because he’s our senior senator for Oregon, but because he’s one of the few people at the federal level with a deep and long standing commitment to the Internet and its use. Without puffery, he’s one of the reasons you’re even able to read this right now. So when he digs into something like Ring camera footage being used by ICE through Flock, I pay attention.