Portland Seed Fund managers announced the launch of the Intrepid Oregon Fund, which has $4 million to invest in early-stage startups working on climate tech as well as healthcare, medical devices, advanced manufacturing and natural resource innovation.
Business Oregon, the state government’s economic development agency, provided anchor funding for the initiative and additional investors have pledged their support.
The state agency and Oregon Innovation Council jointly held a competitive process that led them to select Portland Seed Fund to manage the investments.
Portland Seed Fund has invested in more than 200 companies since its creation in 2011, and ranks as the most active venture capital investor in the state, according to CB Insights. Its investments include battery manufacturer ESS Inc.; SightBox, which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson; and Auth0, which Okta acquired.
The new fund has already made two investments.
The first was Bold Reuse, a Portland startup providing reusable dishes and food containers paired with environmental analytics.
This month, the company announced the launch of a reusable cup program at a Arizona State University arena, and other customers include the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers and the Oregon Convention Center. Bold Reuse in February opened a dishwashing facility in Seattle, and has a pilot project with Seattle Public Schools and longer-term contracts with a private school in the city and the catering business Lish.
The second investment is in Solid Carbon, a startup located in Oregon’s wine country that is trapping carbon in concrete. Its initial product line is called BioLock and the company touts it as “the first commercial carbon-negative concrete product available in the U.S.”
“The need for low-carbon solutions in the concrete industry are massive and to serve this industry Solid Carbon needs to be prepared to scale,” said CEO John Mead by email. The investment from Intrepid Oregon Fund, he added, “is a key step in our journey.”
Steve Eichenlaub and Angela Jackson of Portland Seed Fund will manage the new fund. Shashi Jain is joining Intrepid Oregon Fund as a venture partner.
Initial investments in startups will be between $100,000 to $250,000, Jackson said. “But we anticipate liberal follow-on investments over [the] years for companies that continue to scale,” she said.
Intrepid Oregon Fund plans to invest in 15 or more Oregon-based companies.
The new fund was announced at the Wings Conference, an annual climate tech event taking place today at the Portland State University campus.
As with the broader venture capital industry, investments in climate tech have declined in recent years. Global investments in the sector peaked in 2021 at $51 billion. In 2022 they dropped to $48.1 billion, and slid further last year to $41.1 billion, according to PitchBook.
Experts caution that investments need to be orders of magnitude higher. Last year, Deloitte warned that private venture capital could fall $2 trillion short of what’s needed to hit 2030 greenhouse gas targets.
