Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
While startups and venture are still largely homogenous, there are people doing the work and strides being made in the diversification of both sides of that table. And venture fund Rogue Women is taking the opportunity to celebrate that — and the people making that happen — with its Women in Start-ups and Venture – A Celebration and Discussion event.
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As the Great Resignation continues to swell, seeking the next job you’ll be able to resign from can be top of mind for many people. Or maybe even the next job you’ll stick with. Which is why it’s nice to see that Oregon Venture Fund — the most dominant presence in the Oregon venture community — has launched a job board featuring openings at its portfolio companies. All thanks to OVF investor in residence Deepthi Madhava.
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Our national narrative places entrepreneurship out of reach for far too many of us at a time when it’s easier than ever to be an entrepreneur. The U.S. was founded on a culture of starting stuff and we must get back to our entrepreneurial roots. Our economic future is an era of entrepreneurship. Calling all entrepreneurs. Let’s start more stuff.
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The Portland Business Journal is reporting this morning on numbers from Pitchbook that show Portland metro area startups raised more than $1 billion in venture capital in 2021. The more impressive number from my perspective? That total was the result of investments in 138 deals.
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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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Another local venture capital fund has leveraged the success of its previous efforts to raise another larger fund. Portland based Elevate Capital has announced hitting the first close on their $40 million fund II. And they’ve already started cutting checks out the fund.
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It’s that time of year. When folks are looking back and analyzing what happened in 2020. We’ve already taken a look at venture capital in the Pacific Northwest and the creator economy on Gumroad. Now, Crunchbase gives us a glimpse of what happened around the world in venture capital in 2020.
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One of the newsletters I make sure to read every week is The DL by Daniel Li. Given his vantage at Madrona, the newsletter tends to focus on trends in venture capital and venture funded companies in the Pacific Northwest. To kick off the new year, Dan put together some slides to recap of the stuff he was tracking in 2020. And it’s a good reminder that there was some decent progress last year, even with all of the weirdness.
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It’s always nice to see more capital focused on helping entrepreneurs around here. So it was a bright spot in all of this weirdness to see that there was a new venture fund in town. And it was an even brighter spot to see that the Oregon Growth Board had committed $350,000 to the new fund. Meet Include Venture Group.
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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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