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

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

City of Industry: Portland, Oregon–Number one large metro in new manufacturing firms – City Observatory

The Portland metropolitan area, with 2.47 manufacturing firms under five years of age per 10,000 population  is number one.  It outranks San Jose and Austin (high tech powerhouses), Houston and Nashville (sunbelt boom-towns) and regional rivals, like Seattle.  Phoenix is often cited as an exemplar of economic development, but Portland generates almost twice as many new manufacturing firms per 10,000 population as Phoenix (1.31).  The median value for these 50 large metro areas, (1.45 local manufacturing firms ages 5 and under per 10,000 residents) is shown as a red dashed line).

From an angel network in Bend. To a PNW seed fund. With a vision to become something bigger than both of those. Cascade Seed Fund is now Long Way Ventures.

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

Opinion: Make Democracy capitalist again – GeekWire

I have a confession to make. I’m a Democrat. And a capitalist. Both, at the same time.

Next week, 300 developers from around the world are descending on Portland for TokioConf — the inaugural conference for the Tokio project, one of the most widely used open source frameworks in the Rust programming language ecosystem. And they chose Portland. For their very first one.

You know what I love about the Oregon Regional Innovation Hub network? It’s a constant reminder that the Oregon startup ecosystem extends around the entire state. North, South, East, West. Case in point: Gorge PitchFest is back for 2026 — and the Mid-Columbia Innovation Hub is taking applications.

Why should Portland have all of the AI hackathony and gathering fun around Claude…? It shouldn’t. That’s why it’s nice to see Salem, Oregon, entering the game with Claude Social Night. (On the downside, it’s the same exact night as the TAO AI Sandbox event, April 22, 2026. But alas, such is life. (And isn’t it nice to see competing AI events…?))

I knew it would happen. The second I started blabbing about the fact that I’m not a fan of pitch competitions I’d jinxed myself. Now…? All I seem to get are pings about pitch competitions. Here’s another one: the Technology Association of Oregon AI Startup Innovation Sandbox.

If a founder comes back to be part of the pitch event that they won last year…? That’s a pretty good sign that the pitch competition was valuable. And that’s exactly what’s happening with Akshay Gupta — who won $25,000 in investment during Westside Pitch 2025 with Sez Us. This year…? He’s the emcee. Which leads me to ask: Who is in the running to be emcee next year…?