A few months ago, we expanded the GeekWire 200 list to include privately-held tech startups headquartered in Oregon. We love tracking what’s going on in Portland, Bend and beyond, and GeekWire reporter and Portland native Taylor Soper routinely hits the streets of his hometown to check out the startup scene. (He’ll be in Oregon early next month, so make sure to drop him a note).
This is just one small part of our effort to tell entrepreneurial stories from throughout the Pacific Northwest — whether Puyallup, Poulsbo or Portland.
Portland may not have the heft of the Seattle tech scene. After all, there is no anchor tenant headquartered in PDX on the scale of Amazon.com, Microsoft or T-Mobile. But there’s a thriving startup scene in the Rose City, for sure.
And that scene is more than apparent on the GeekWire 200.
Two of the top 10 companies on the list hail from Portland: Act-On Software (#8) and Puppet Labs (#10). And a third company — online outdoor gear retailer The Clymb — ranks 20th. Other notable Portland startups on the list include Urban Airship (#42) and Jama Software (#69), both venture-backed startups.
Seattle still overpowers Portland when it comes to startup financing. During the first quarter, there were 10 Oregon deals accounting for $41.9 million. That compares to $299 million spread across 19 deals in Washington state, according to the MoneyTree report.
Speaking of Portland, the GeekWire team is once again excited to participate in this year’s TechFestNW, hosting the after-party following the festive Tech Crawl on Aug. 19. Stay tuned for more details on that.
The GeekWire 200 —presented by our partners at EY — is a resource for identifying and tracking privately-held tech companies in the Pacific Northwest. It uses publicly available data — including social media followings, approximate employee counts and inbound web links — to generate a ranking of 200 top companies from our broader list of more than 900 Pacific Northwest tech startups.
It’s not a perfect ranking by any means, but we think it helps provide a better understanding of the startup landscape. It’s also a work in progress, and we are always looking for ways to improve the list.
To make sure your startup is eligible for inclusion in the GeekWire 200, first make sure it’s included in the broader Startup List. If so, there’s no need to submit it separately for the GeekWire 200. If your Pacific Northwest startup isn’t among the companies on that larger list, you can submit it for inclusion here, and our algorithm will crunch the numbers to see if your company makes next month’s GeekWire 200. (Please, no service providers, marketing agencies, etc.)
Special note for job seekers: We’ve added a new feature to the GeekWire 200, “We’re Hiring” buttons, supplementing our GeekWork jobs site to help connect candidates with employers. Companies interested in this feature can contact advertising@geekwire.com.
