Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
While a whole new crop of startups are currently being pitched and formed at the latest version of Startup Weekend Portland, the winning company from the last Startup Weekend just managed to wow a crowd of investors in Bend—and land a bit more capital. Read More
While stories of Portland and Oregon startups landing funding are becoming more and more common these days, there are still any number of local startups who are still looking for ways to break into the realm of venture funding.
And one of the best ways to make those connections with local investors? Getting in front of the crowd at OEN Venture Northwest. Read More
Last year they quietly landed $3 million. Today, ShopIgniter quietly announced that they had landed another $8 million in Series B.
ShopIgniter is kind of one of those quiet startups around Portland. There isn’t a great deal of hubbub around them. Not a great deal of hype. Last year they quietly landed $3 million. Today, ShopIgniter quietly announced that they had landed another $8 million in Series B. Read More
Vying for cash is always a competition. But sometimes it’s actually a competition. I mean, like an event. Like the Bend Venture Conference. And like the annual Oregon Entrepreneur Network (OEN) Venture Northwest event.
Today, Venture Northwest revealed the speakers for this year. And of the 10 companies chosen to present, six fall into the realm of stuff Silicon Florist would usually cover. And I want one of them to win. So I’m only telling you about those six. Read More
It’s getting to be that time of year again. The time when the competitions heat up for startups looking to impress venture capitalists. Okay. Maybe that’s actually all year.
Whatever the case, it’s time for the Bend Venture Conference where startups will be vying for $175,000 in funding. Read More
Portland-based JanRain—a company that started as an OpenID play and has since morphed into the way to simplify distributed Web logins across the board—announced that they had closed Series A financing to the tune $3.25 million. The round was led by DFJ Frontier. Especially considering this round has been rumored to be in the works since this summer.
It’s always a good day when a Portland-area startup gets funding. And by that reasoning, today was a very good day. Portland-based JanRain—a company that started as an OpenID play and has since morphed into the way to simplify distributed Web logins across the board—announced that they had closed Series A financing to the tune $3.25 million. The round was led by DFJ Frontier. Especially considering this round has been rumored to be in the works since this summer.
So how did the market react? Well, there was quite a bit of coverage, so let’s take a look. Read More
One of the most enigmatic components of any startup’s life is “funding.” Do I need capital? Should I pursue capital? How do I approach venture capitalists? Should I avoid venture capitalists? What are the benefits? What are the drawbacks? Necessary evil or rite of passage?
There are a ton of questions.
And unless you’ve been fortunate enough to learn the funding mating dance as part of another company, it’s a completely foreign—and intimidating—proposition.
Well, have heart Web-app-mogul-to-be. CenterNetworks is running a series on venture capitalists that may help inform your understanding of this strange and elusive beast.
The topic? How VCs get their money:
NYC Venture Capitalist Mark Davis is authoring a four-part series on how a VC is funded. Davis notes the four methods are: diverse limited partners, family office, government or public capital. Today, Davis looks at diverse limited partners. The other three methods will follow throughout the week.
I highly recommend you follow the series. Not only will this provide a great vantage point for helping you understand the motivations for the venture capitalist, it may just help demystify the whole venture capital question for you and your startup.
Earlier this week, I tried to shoot a hole in news that the “Web 2.0 sky is falling” by highlighting that Web 2.0 investments may be down in the Silicon Valley and Texas—but Web 2.0 venture amounts are up practically everywhere else, including the Silicon Forest.
Today, TechCrunch continued to take a look at the slowing:
In 2007, the median deal size was $5 million, up 22 percent. And the median pre-money valuation was $10 million, up 66 percent (from $6 million in 2006). Both deal size and valuation for Web 2.0 companies remained below the average VC deal across all industries ($7.6 million and $16 million, respectively)
But again, there’s a silver lining to this Silicon-Valley cloud. For us, at least.
Take a look at where the top investments landed. Lo and behold, there are two Silicon Forest companies on the list. Corvallis-based MyStrands appears on the list twice with nearly $50 million combined investment, and Portland-based Jive Software appears courtesy of their $15 million round, last year.
This is the kind of news that begins to put Portland and the entire Silicon Forest on the map. It’s news that, hopefully, makes the venture capital community take notice. And maybe, just maybe, the type of news that motivates those investors to take a second look at the Rose City technology scene.
I can’t wait to see what 2008 holds for our local companies. But the bar has been set. And I hope to see more than two of our companies on the list, next year.
(Hat tip Jeff the Great)
