Portland Oregon startups, tech, news, events, jobs, and community
Portland startup and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
If you’ve ever seen those rentable custom Sprinter vans in your forays into the outdoors, you’ve like encountered GoCamp, the Portland startup that’s like “Airbnb for camper vans.” Well it was a Portland startup at least. Until it got acquired by Storyteller Overland, last week.
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If you’ve been curious about Portland’s Expensify going public, the S-1 is now available for your reading pleasure. The high notes? They plan to raise $243 million by selling about 10 million shares priced between $23-$25 range. And they plan to trade on Nasdaq under the symbol EXFY.
And from my personal perspective, I don’t ever recall reading an S-1 — and I’ve read quite a few — that reference a motivation to “Get shit done.” But this one does.
Anyone who knows Juan has seen him in action – he’s relentless in his energy to create a more equitable and vibrant startup community. I suspect that Juan spends most of his time thinking how things could be better and connecting awesome dots.
For more, follow Juan on Twitter.
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As the pandemic hit, suddenly every product and retail company was forced to become an ecommerce company. But choosing the right platform amidst all of the potential possibilities proved to be another challenge to overcome. Which inspired Portland startup Rally, a headless decentralized ecommerce platform that works in tandem with a variety of other providers.
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If you’ve ever managed folks, you know how powerful 1:1s (one-on-ones) can be for keeping everyone up to date and on the same page. And if you’ve ever managed anyone at a startup, you know how keeping a consistent schedule for those 1:1s can fall to pieces in a stressful environment. That’s why Portland startup Reclaim is putting their AI bot to work on your calendars, so that those 1:1s always happen, even under the most tenuous of calendar conditions.
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If you’re working with hardware, things can start off pretty clunky sometimes. And working prototypes are often a far cry from the final product that designed for manufacturing and assembly. Portland based Panic shared a great example of that. Revealing an early prototype of the Apple iPod in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Steve Jobs revealing the product.
With all of the funding announcements bouncing around, it’s always nice to hear how the startups plan to use the capital they’re raising. Like Portland startup The Dyrt, which plans to use an $11 million capital infusion to double the employee base of the company by adding 30 new roles.
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According to Portland Inno, a publication of the Portland Business Journal:
Cascade Seed Fund II has completed its first close and the team can start investing. The first fund was $6 million, after fundraising was cut short by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The managing directors, Julie Harrelson and Robert Pease, have completed all the new investments that can happen for Fund I.
I always say that Portland built its tech startup community on “engineers building tools for other engineers.” That began as far back as Tektronix and continues today with companies like Puppet and Sila. That being said, it’s always nice to see consumer facing tech startups beginning to find success here, as well. Like Shop Latinx, which just secured $1 million in funding.
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Lately, there’s been a great deal of breathless media coverage about the recent spate of local initial public offerings. Especially because they’ve come after a lengthy drought for the region, in that regard. But all of these local IPOs have one curious thing in common: none of them were actually Portland companies. Absci is in Vancouver. Dutch Bros is Grants Pass. And ESS is Wilsonville. But now, a Portland tech company promises to truly end the dearth of Portland — and Portland tech — IPOs. Expensify has filed to go public.
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