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

Duncan Miller, the cofounder of Rose City Robotics, has had significant experience with bootstrapping startups. But lately, he’s also had the opportunity to take a seat on the other side of the table — as an investor. Bringing these two perspectives together, Duncan shares why bootstrapping works for founders but VC works for investors.

After hosting 400+ folks for the Portland startup community 2025 kickoff event, we decided to dial it back a bit. For the next couple of Portland startup community events, we’ll be focusing on smaller community events that focus on particular founders. The next event takes place Tuesday, February 11, 2025, featuring Black founders who have participated in Built Oregon, PIE, Pitch Black, and/or Vanport Studio. The bad news…? It’s been sold out for a week. The good news…? There’s a livestream.

Anyone who has been to a recent community event has probably already clued into this one, but just in case you’ve been out of the loop, Yalda Moshiri has joined Oregon Entrepreneurs Network as the new Angel Oregon Program Director.

This is more of the type of content I would love to see. Founders taking the time to discuss not only the positive aspects of the Oregon startup ecosystem but also the areas that need improvement. Because we need to get that sort of feedback if we’re going to continue to improve our community for all founders. Thanks so much to Michael Ulin, cofounder and CTO of Paxton, for capturing this list of Oregon startup ecosystem pros and cons.

I know, I know. You started reading “DeepS…” and you’re like “I thought he wasn’t talking about DeepSeek…?” Well, I’m still not talking about DeepSeek. I’m talking about Portland startup DeepSurface. Which was acquired by AttackIQ.

Been looking to get back into the community, but not quite sure where to start…? Meetup seems to have some good energy as momentum returns to the Portland startup community — for both in person and virtual events. And there’s a wide variety of potential topics being covered.

I always love when startups find an established market that is perfect for their product. I’m even happier when those markets are nonobvious when it comes to applying cutting edge technology. So while “senior living” might not be your first choice for the application of AI, Bend startup WiseOx has managed to figure out exactly how that combination can work. Thanks to their approachable and knowledgeable AI Mascot™ offering.