..read more

It’s not odd that venture funds go quiet from time to time. As they need to cycle through their own fundraising and whatnot. But it’s always nice to see them starting to make noise again. And Portland Seed Fund is doing that in multiple ways with their news today. New people: Shashi Jain joins PSF as a venture partner Well known startup community member Shashi Jain is now joining the VC ranks as the newest venture partners at Portland Seed Fund. If Shashi’s name isn’t familiar to you, here’s a little more context: Jain is a seasoned start-up ecosystem partner and has served as Senior Strategi ..read more

Whether you’re old enough to remember the screeching tones of a modem followed by a cheerful “You’ve got mail!” or not, you’re still likely to recognize the impact that AOL had on our access to online resources in the early days of the Web. The founder of AOL, Steve Case, (who now heads up Revolution and their Rise of the Rest efforts) was recently in DC addressing the US House Entrepreneurial Caucus along with Victor Hwang of Right to Start. Their advice…? Double down on entrepreneurship. “How do we make sure that we don’t get cocky and complacent and just assume it’s America’s right to alway ..read more

The trend continues. Another month, another handoff for the Demolicious belt. This month, Fanwagn managed to snag the win from the March 2024 title holder Ecobadlandz. Miss attending this one…? As luck would have Josh Grenevitch captured video of the event and cut together a quick recap. What caused the crowd to vote for Fanwagn’s pitch? Well, it doesn’t seem like it was an affinity for the Dallas Stars. But it clearly was a great pitch. FANWAGN will change how sports fans discover, collect and resell fan apparel representing their favorite teams, players, events, and leagues. It’s an online ..read more

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