Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
Oregon Community Foundation focuses on improving the lives of all Oregonians through philanthropic efforts. But today, they focused on a very particular group of Oregonians: entrepreneurs. And they did so by donating $580,000 to a variety fo entrepreneur support groups.
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A couple of interesting fund announcements for founders building Crypto and Blockchain solutions. One direct, and one more indirect. But both with local ties to the Oregon startup community.
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In order to sustain a vibrant startup investor ecosystem, funds need to start, find success, and raise more funds. And should that success cause them to grow beyond their previous stage focus, then new funds need to start to backfill the gaps. So as many of the early stage funds in the Pacific Northwest achieve success and move downstream to Seed and Series A investments, it’s nice to see new funds stepping up to take the opportunity to support pre-Seed startups. Like the new Startup Haven Venture Fund.
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It’s one of those weeks in Seattle. Founders’ Co-op announced their new fund. And now, Pioneer Square Labs has revealed Fund II, a $100 million fund focused on early stage startups in the Pacific Northwest.
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If you’re a Black founder seeking venture capital, you may want to look toward a Portland-based fund inspired by the struggles of another Black founder. Marceau Michel knows firsthand the frustrations of raising capital. But that negative experience also served as the motivation to provide a solution for other Black founders: the Black Founders Matter Fund.
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If you follow the world of venture capital and private equity, you’re likely familiar with the concept of funds. They’re the folks who are doing due diligence, cutting checks to provide capital for companies, and actively managing a portfolio. What’s less obvious and murky is where those funds actually get the money they use to make those investments. Some of that money comes from a-whole-nother group of funds — often referred to as a “fund of funds” — that provide capital for venture capital and private equity funds to do their work. And one of those fund of funds is the Oregon Public Employees Retirement (PERS) Fund.
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I can confidently say that there will never be enough accessible capital to adequately support entrepreneurs. So we’ll always have that to complain about. But that’s also a massive opportunity. Because there is also plenty of room for new players — and new models — to emerge. And another one just did. From Sahil Lavingia, founder of Gumroad.
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While this pandemic may be slowing startups down, it’s not stopping them. Supermaker recognizes this and they’re doing something to help those startups get back up to speed. By providing mentorship and funding to keep those companies going. Introducing the Entrepreneurial Dream Project.
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Everyone loves to brag about what companies are headquartered in their town. But what about fully remote companies with no actual headquarters? What about them? Well, I say if Portland boasts a bulk of employees — like say Automattic or Zapier — or if some key execs — like ConvertKit — live here in town, then we can claim them as a Portland company.
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One of the issues with the current state of the Portland startup community is the negative of a positive. The positive? Formerly early stage funds have found success, returned multiples on invested capital, matured, raised larger funds, and are now writing larger checks for Seed and Series A rounds.
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