Not many folks realized it but Goldstar, a live events ticketing platform, had a fairly significant Portland presences with nearly 40 local folks working at the company prior to the pandemic. Today, Goldstar announced they were being acquired by TodayTix Group. And with it, the Portland story would seem to come to an end. Except for the fact that the Portland folks get to work for a new startup spun out of Goldstar. Meet Stellar.
Read MoreTag: Acquisition
Twitter’s acquisition of Scroll has a Portland connection
News has started bubbling about Twitter acquiring Scroll, a service that allowed users to pay a subscription to remove ads from popular content sites. Scroll also owns Nuzzel, a popular news service that shares stories that people in your Twitter timeline are sharing. Cool. But what does that have to do with Portland exactly?
Read MoreHigh valuation: Bend has a unicorn in dutchie
Sometimes funding rounds are put together to fund acquisitions. And that seems to be the case with Bend startup dutchie, which just announced a $200 million Series C and the acquisition of two partners. All of that equates to one thing. There’s a unicorn in Oregon with a valuation of $1.7 billion.
Read MoreThat $1 billion acquisition of Portland’s Innovyze? It’s the largest in Autodesk history
Just came across another random tidbit about Autodesk acquiring Portland’s Innovyze for $1 billion. And no I’m not just looking for an excuse to say “wet infrastructure” again. Oh. Well crap. Anyway… It just happens to be the largest acquisition in Autodesk history. And that’s something, considering Autodesk has a significant history of acquiring.
Read MoreA new reality: Portland Augmented Reality startup Streem acquires London AR startup Selerio
Portland startup Streem, itself the second chapter for a founder who went through an acquisition with his company ONtheGO Platforms, today announced that they are acquiring Selerio, a London startup focused on the AR space.
Sometimes these puns just write themselves: Get a look see at the new Sightbox office
You’ve no doubt heard about Sightbox — or maybe seen their logo on the Portland Timbers jerseys. They’re the Portland startup that was successfully acquired by Johnson & Johnson. An acquisition that made any number of local investors’ IRR look pretty darn good. Now, they’ve got a renewed focused on being an active participant in the Portland startup community. And the first step? Showing you where they work.
Rounding up the news on Akamai’s acquisition of Janrain
In case you missed it, Portland’s Janrain was acquired by Akamai. Given that it was the first real Monday following the holidays, I can totally appreciate that you might have missed it. So I thought I would round up some content to help get you up to speed on the deal.
Portland startup Reflect acquired by Portland mainstay Puppet
One of my concerns about the Portland startup community is that it often takes a significant amount of time for companies to find their way to an exit. And for venture funded companies, it’s all about the exit. So it was a pleasant surprise to see two Portland companies involved in an acquisition—especially when one of those companies was still on the earlier stages of growth. Puppet has acquired Reflect.
Acorns now and Acorns Later: Portland startup Vault acquired by Acorns
One of the challenges with the Portland startup community has always been achieving exits that generate capital and connections that can be reinvested into the next generation of companies in our community. So it’s always nice to see an exit. But it’s even nicer when that exit is a company founded by a Portland native who is interested in giving back to the community. That’s why I’m happy to announce that Portland startup Vault has been acquired by Acorns.
Another Portland company acquired: Higher Logic scoops up Kavi
So this is interesting. For all the positives of the Skyward acquisition today, it still had one issue that has been consistently part of our “liquidity event” stories: it was a solitary event. Portland doesn’t have multiple exits happening in rapid succession. We don’t get the opportunity to build momentum. Or at least we didn’t… but it may be starting. Because Portland based Kavi announced their acquisition by Higher Logic today, too. Read More