Oregon entrepreneurs have a powerful new resource to help them find the sources of funding that best fit where their companies are in the startup process. It's called the Oregon Capital Scan.
Compiled by the Lundquist College's Business Innovation Institute, Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship, and Finance and Securities Analysis Center, the report is a comprehensive catalog of funding sources—from Kickstarter campaigns to angel investors to traditional bank loans and beyond.
With the overview the report provides, entrepreneurs can begin thinking strategically about funding throughout their companies' lifecycles, rather than on a just-in-time basis.
“We use the analogy of a mouse going up a staircase. Entrepreneurs do whatever they need to do to get the funding they need right now, not knowing how that's going to affect what they're going to need in five years," said John Hull, executive director of the Business Innovation Institute and the Lundquist College of Business's assistant dean for centers.
The report will also serve policymakers, educators, and anyone else interested in nurturing the state's growth companies by enabling them to target areas in the funding landscape that need further development.
For the two Oregon MBA students and the three Lundquist College undergraduates who spent part of the past academic year researching and compiling it, the report provided a unique view into the nitty-gritty of the funding scene.
This year's report updates and expands on an earlier report produced in 2012.
Though both reports show an ongoing shortage of venture capital and private equity firms within the state, the intervening years have brought some positive changes as well. Most notably, the past two years have seen notable growth in the number of seed funds, startup incubators, and accelerators.
Sponsored by the Oregon Community Foundation, CTC | myCFO, Foundations for a Better Oregon, Meyer Memorial Trust, Oregon State Treasury, and Business Oregon, the report represents the latest effort in the Lundquist College's ongoing campaign to help grow the state's economy by fostering an environment in which entrepreneurship can thrive.
“We're looking to develop a startup culture similar to what you find in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, where entrepreneurship is simply in the air and you can't help but pick it up," said Hull.
Read the Oregon Capital Scan and find out more about it in two Portland Business Journal pieces: an overview of the report and an interview with Hull.