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

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

Trade-offs to Investing Regionally  — Oregon Venture Fund

Since its founding in 2007, Oregon Venture Fund has limited its investments to startups with a presence in Oregon and Southern Washington. More specifically, our criteria is – at minimum – at least one founder or key leader should have a primary residence in our region.

I can remember last year somebody making the claim that there wasn’t enough VC in the Pacific Northwest. Well, that seems to be changing. And our neighbors to the north seem to be doing more than their fair share in activating more venture capital for investing in the startups being built in our region. The latest? Fortson.

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

ChEmpower Secures $18.7M to Advance Abrasive-Free Planarization in Chip Manufacturing

ChEmpower, a semiconductor materials company providing polish pads and chemical solutions for planarization, announced it has raised $18.7M in Series A funding. The funding will help scale its technology for advanced chip manufacturing and packaging. The funding round was co-led by M Ventures and Rhapsody Venture Partners. New and existing investors Intel Capital, Pangaea Ventures, Foothill Ventures, In-Q-Tel (IQT), and TEL Venture Capital also participated in the funding.

Thanks to our friends at GeekWire for catching that Portland biotech startup Araceli Biosciences has landed $11.2 million to fund their ongoing development of their AI enhanced imagining technology designed to speed drug discovery.

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

How to Build and Scale Onboarding

Superhuman became known for its unique approach to onboarding: a highly-personalized, white-glove, human-led experience. Superhuman’s Gaurav Vohra, startup advisor and growth leader, gives us a detailed look at how he built and scaled the program.

So you’ve been hearing some rumblings about a “Portland Startup Week.” But you’re not quite sure what that is or why you should care. Well, I might be able to help. Portland Startup Week 2025 is a weeklong celebration of the Portland startup community through events and gatherings that bring the community together. And, after a long hiatus, it’s now back in 2025. And will take place May 12–16, 2025.

First, there was AI Portland. Then AI Tinkerers Portland. Recently, we got Portland AI Engineers. And now, we’ve got the GenAI Collective, a new gathering from our favorite AI industry analyst, AJ Green. The inaugural meetup takes place with a launch party on May 15, 2025.