Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
It’s another exit via acquisition for serial founder Raven Zachary. His latest company — the Microsoft Hololens agency he helped cofound, Object Theory — has been acquired by ARound. Small Society, the iOS development shop Raven cofounded prior to Object Theory — a preeminent player in the then burgeoning Portland mobile scene — was acquired by Walmart Labs in 2012.
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We’ve seen it time and time again. The next big thing. Web, open source, cloud, mobile… And time and time again, Portland, with its early adopter culture, has been at the forefront of nascent industries, patiently waiting for their markets to form. I’ve been waiting to see what the next big thing might be. And with today’s news from RealWear, I’m inclined to think augmented reality may be the next industry that Portland is known for.
We’ve been salivating, virtually, at the potential for alternative realities—be they virtual, augmented, or mixed—for years now. But for all of that anticipation, there has been little to show. Part of this is due to the newness of the platforms and hardware and the challenge of creating palpable experiences in those environments. That’s why it’s nice to see things like Prism from Portland’s Object Theory which truly begin to demonstrate the potential of the medium.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: the Portland startup scene is grappling with adolescence a little later than a few other startup scenes. We’re a late bloomer, as it were. Mostly because we didn’t have many—if any—successful exits during the dotcom days. So we’re barely getting to the point of founders successfully exiting and then starting their next thing. Read More