Venture capital investors have pumped almost $1 billion into companies in the Portland metro area so far this year, surpassing the entire amount invested in companies last year.
According to the latest data from Pitchbook and the National Venture Capital Association, there was $322.8 million invested in the third quarter of this year into 33 deals. That brings the total invested so far this year to $969.4 million in 115 deals in the Portland metro, according to the latest Venture Monitor report.
The year is poised to be a record, at least in recent memory.
In all of 2020, there was $647.7 million invested. That year was dragged down by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and saw a big drop off in the second quarter before activity rebounded late in the year. In all of 2019, there was $981.6 million invested. In 2018, it was $814 million and in 2017 it was $303.9 million.
According to Pitchbook data, 2018 was the year that the Portland metro started to see multiple quarters with nine-digit investment amounts. It’s also when the region started to see monster rounds of more than $100 million at a time, kicked off by Vacasa and Jama Software, which in late 2017 and 2018 secured private equity investment in a single round that was locally unheard of at the time.
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Deal activity has varied between mid-twenties and low thirties for the number of investments made. As dollar amounts rise this would reflect the ongoing trend of larger later stage deals.
For Julie Harrelson, partner at Cascade Seed Fund and longtime angel investor, the growing amount invested in Portland and Oregon startups each quarter is evidence that efforts put in place years ago are working.
“There has been a persistent amount of work over a period of time to build a foundation for companies to scale,” she said, adding that it is work that was started more than a decade ago. “As with anything, there are critical elements to have in place to scale a company. It’s beginning to work. The question is now will those people and those companies invest money, talent, resources into the next generation of companies. That’s a question we all need to answer as residents of this region.”
Here’s some of the top deals of the third quarter for the Portland metro:
- Nuclear power startup NuScale, which developed a small modular reactor, secured $152 million.
- Health Professionals Alliance, which works with independent health care providers for services and funding, raised $42 million
- Remote work software maker Teamflow raised $35 million.
- Fintech company Sila raised $13 million
- Driver assist technology PreAct Technologies raised $11 million
- Food startup Honey Mama’s raised $11 million.
On the state level, $1 billion has been invested so far this year across 132 deals. For the quarter, investors put $324.7 million into 35 deals.
At the same time these numbers were released, Bend-based software maker Dutchie announced a $350 million Series D round that pushes its valuation past $3 billion.
