Oregon Venture Fund makes venture investments in the

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

area and throughout Oregon and SW Washington. The fund consists of 180 institutional and

angel investors An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

, of whom 85% have run or founded a business. The fund evaluates up to 300 business plans per year, selecting five to seven to invest in annually. In 2018, the fund changed its name from Oregon Angel Fund to Oregon Venture Fund and launched a new $30M fund. Since its inception, Oregon Venture Fund has generated an average annual rate of return of 34% and a return on investment exceeding $3.50 for each dollar invested.

Investment strategy

About 70 percent of the fund's investments are in technology. 20 percent are medical devices, health care IT, and related fields. And 10 percent are in other areas such as transportation, advanced materials, and consumer. 31% of portfolio companies were founded by, or are headed by, a woman and 23% by a person of color. Some 70 companies in Oregon Venture Fund's portfolio include Absci, Jama,

Elemental Technologies WowWS History Elemental was founded in 2006 by three engineers formerly of the semiconductor company Pixelworks: Sam Blackman (CEO), Jesse Rosenzweig ( CTO), and Brian Lewis. In July 2012, Elemental products supported the broadcast of the 2012 ...

, Brandlive, Salt & Straw, and Wildfang. The Oregon Venture Fund also receives investment from The

Oregon Community Foundation Oregon Community Foundation (OCF) is a non-profit organisation with the mission of improving lives for all Oregonians through the power of philanthropy. It is the fifth largest community foundation in the United States as ranked by asset size i ...

Meyer Memorial Trust Fred G. Meyer (February 21, 1886 – September 2, 1978)"Fred Meyer, Retail Empire Builder, Dies at 92" (September 3, 1978). ''The Sunday Oregonian'', p. 1. was an American businessman who founded the Oregon-based Fred Meyer store chain, whic ...

, the

State of Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, and regional colleges and universities, such as

Willamette University Willamette University is a private liberal arts college with locations in Salem and Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest college in the Western United States. Originally named the Oregon Institute, the school was an unaffiliated ...

Portland State University Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decades ...

, and

Lewis & Clark College Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & Cl ...

Investments and exits

Oregon Venture Fund notable investments and exits include: * Absci (Nasdaq IPO) *Bigleaf Networks * Brandlive *Bright.MD *Bumped *ClearAccess (acquired by

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...

) *Cloud Campaign *CrowdCompass (acquired by

Cvent Cvent Holding Corp. (Nasdaq: CVT) is a publicly held software-as-a-service (SaaS) company based in Virginia that specializes in meetings, events, and hospitality management technology. The company has over 4,000 employees. Cvent offers web-based s ...

) *Customer.io *

(acquired by

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...

for $500 million) * Gear Up *Giftango (acquired by InComm) *GlobeSherpa (acquired by

Daimler AG The Mercedes-Benz Group AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of the world's leading car manufacture ...

) *Hubb (acquired by

Intrado Intrado, formerly West Corporation, is an American telecommunications company. It became a subsidiary of Apollo Global Management on October 11, 2017. Business Operations Intrado reorganized in five main segments: Cloud Collaboration, Life an ...

) *Inpria (acquired by JSR Corp. for $514 million) *IOTAS *Jama Software (

Insight Partners Insight Partners (previously Insight Venture Partners) is an American venture capital and private equity firm based in New York City. The firm invests in growth-stage technology, software and Internet businesses. History Insight Partners was fo ...

acquired 80% of Jama for $200M) *Kivo * Little Bird (acquired by

Sprinklr Sprinklr is an American software company based in New York City that develops a SaaS customer experience management (CXM) platform. The company's software, also called Sprinklr, combines different applications for social media marketing, social ...

) *Lumen Learning *Meridian (acquired by

Aruba Aruba ( , , ), officially the Country of Aruba ( nl, Land Aruba; pap, Pais Aruba) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuela peninsula of ...

for $26 million) *Opal *Pacific Light Technologies (acquired by

Osram Osram Licht AG is a German company that makes electric lights, headquartered in Munich and Premstätten (Austria). Osram positions itself as a high-tech photonics company that is increasingly focusing on sensor technology, visualization and tre ...

) *Poached Jobs *Rigado * RISE Brewing *Rumpl * Salt & Straw *Second Porch (acquired by

HomeAway HomeAway was a vacation rental marketplace. It operated through 50 websites in 23 languages through which it offered rentals of cabins, condos, castles, villas, barns, and farmhouses. Founded in February 2005 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, ...

) *Sila *SmartRG (acquired by

AdTran Adtran, Inc. is a leading global provider of open, disaggregated networking and communications solutions. Adtran Is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama. The company is ISO 9001 and TL9000, ISO 14001, and ISO 27001 certified. History ADTRAN ...

) * Streem (acquired by Frontdoor) *The Clymb (acquired by LeftLane Sports) *The Wild (acquired by

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered ...

) *TrovaTrip *Wayfinder * Wildfang

Management

Co-founded by Robert Ward and Eric Rosenfeld, the fund is now managed by Eric Rosenfeld, Alline Akintore, Deepthi Madhava, Melissa Freeman, Jon Maroney, Matt Compton, Lynn Fletcher, and Mary Geyer.

References

External links

Oregon Venture Fund website
Financial services companies established in 2007 Venture capital firms of the United States Companies based in Portland, Oregon Angel investors 2007 establishments in Oregon {{US-private-equity-company-stub