Granted, in a remote-first world it can be difficult to accurately define an “Oregon” company, but given that the CTO lives here, Portland Seed Fund participated in this round, and they went through PIE, I’m calling the news that Trace just closed a $2 million Pre-Seed round “local startup news.” What does Trace do…? The Trace platform provides tools to easily create and deploy immersive content on a range of devices from phones and AR glasses to spatial computing hardware like the Apple Vision Pro. While not formally revealed until today, the company has already powered experiences ranging ..read more

Having worked in the tech industry for as long as I have, I’m super familiar with noncompete agreements. You know, the idea that because you learned something at a place you worked, you’re not allowed to go somewhere else that will take advantage of that learning. Or that you can’t go out and start a company based on an opportunity you uncovered through that learning. Well, now those agreements may no longer have any teeth. I’ve been following the arguments against noncompetes for more than a decade, especially in regards to the criticism that they stifle startup activity and innovation. “So t ..read more

Whenever anyone talks about AI in the Portland startup community, Reclaim.ai immediately jumps to mind. They’ve been at this AI thing longer than most. And they’ve been using AI to resolve a common but particularly thorny problem: scheduling meetings. And, more often than not, rescheduling meetings. Now, they’ve released their latest feature, Smart Meetings — but the data they used to inform the feature may be even more interesting. We’ve all been in bad meetings, but good meetings energize us, motivate the team, and lead us to great things. So when we think about the cost of meetings, it’s n ..read more

I always appreciate a good visualization. Even it’s as simple as a good old graph. If you want to get some insights on what’s happening in startups and venture capital financing these days, Crunchbase has collected a series of graphs to give you a better view. Startup investors kept a tight hold on their wallets in the first quarter of 2024, Crunchbase data shows. There were big exceptions — some AI, healthcare, energy and robotics startups, among others, received massive investments — but overall the tone was cautious as the year got started. For 10 more charts and ..read more

The Provenance Chain Network — the Portland startup that uses the Blockchain to track the “provenance” of materials and ingredients in supply chains — has announced a $4 million round of equity based funding. Prior to this, the company had relied primarily on non-dilutive financing options. Until the Series A, PCN had been funded by seed investments coupled with Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) contract awards. In addition, the company creatively leveraged contract financing through LEONID Capital Partners. “Our capital stack enabled us to cross the well-known SBIR ‘valley o ..read more

The Sports Bra — the Portland pub focused on women’s sports — has captured media attention since its founding. But this latest news is only sure to further that trend: Alexis Ohanian, the cofounder of Reddit, investor, and philanthropist, has shared that his 776 Foundation will provide backing for The Sports Bra expansion to other cities. For more on the foundation, visit 776.org ..read more

It’s always nice to see a first year event sell out. And that’s exactly what’s happened with The Wings Conference, a new event designed to “gather and unite Oregon’s most inspiring leaders from all communities, orient them around the most important crisis of our time, and encourage them to lean into the wind, and take flight.” But you may still be able to grab a ticket, if you join the waitlist. Speakers include: Aina Abiodun, President & Executive Director | VertueLab Alando Simpson, CEO | COR Disposal & Recycling Alicia Chapman, Owner and CEO | Willamette Technical Fabricators Cynth ..read more

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According to research by PitchBook, Portland is ranked 49 on the list of top cities in the world for venture capital. (Seattle, for reference, comes in at #13.) If you take it down to US cities, we’re still second to last. But at least we’re on the board, right…? PitchBook created the global VC Ecosystem Rankings to compare how locations rank in overall development and growth rates relative to one another. The framework provides a scoring system for development and growth by assessing the size, maturity and growth rates of a VC ecosystem using proprietary data points housed in the PitchBook ..read more

I caught this last night on GeekWire. And I expected to see a lot more when I got up this morning. But I’m not really finding much. So it kind of became one of those “Did I just imagine that…?” But, nope. It’s real. I’m just not seeing much about it. So let’s get into it. Portland’s Reperio Health just raised $14 million and signed a deal with Uber. The company has raised a total of $20 million, and is looking to raise an additional $10 million or more to support this broader mission. It’s also talking to manufacturers of other biometric devices to eventually expand the suite of tests provide ..read more