“What should I look for when evaluating a venture fund?” is a question we occasionally hear from prospective investors as well as OVF investors considering funds focused on other geographies, founder demographics, or specific sectors.

March 2023

Eric Rosenfeld

In any given year at Oregon Venture Fund, we meet hundreds of new startups that could potentially fit our investment thesis. Roughly 15% of those receive a screening meeting, the next stage in our evaluation process, and about 20% of those progress into formal diligence. As a result, only 1% or so of all companies we meet end up receiving an investment from OVF. My review of other top-performing VCs show they are similarly selective.

A key question we are often asked is, why is the selection rate so low?

A different year. Same great fund

2023 is finally here! We had a good 2022 at OVF and as we look forward to what may potentially be a bear market, we at the fund remain bullish on hungry, driven early-stage founders in Oregon and Southern Washington.

January 2023

Eric Rosenfeld

Thoughts from Eric Rosenfeld and the Oregon Venture Fund

The most anticipated recession of our generation is supposed to arrive any month now. Which means it may not. Regardless, at the Oregon Venture Fund we are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. We’ve been investing in startups since 2007 and here’s what we think may be new and different with respect to our market and strategy in 2023:

Eric Rosenfeld - November 2022

Risk, Reward, & Uncertainty

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” The correlation between risk and reward is accepted wisdom. The greater the risk, the greater the potential reward. That may be true with most forms of investing, but it may not be always true with venture investing.

Some of the most successful companies in the world are disrupting their industries because they found an effective way to unlock and make available an underutilized asset…

Airbnb unlocked underutilized residences to create a new supply of lodging.

Uber & Lyft unlocked underutilized people and vehicles to create a new supply of transportation.

Amazon unlocked and made available underutilized books, and then everything, including a new supply of web services.

Google unlocked and made available the world’s underutilized information.

TikTok unlocked underutilized teenagers & their inexhaustible creativity.

Moore’s Law – where the number of transistors in an integrated circuit roughly doubles every 2 years and which has governed the semiconductor industry’s march of progress since the 1970s – was about to hit a brick wall. The lack of a photoresist – a photo-reactive ink – to work with next-gen extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, meant that engineers could no longer develop chips with increasingly smaller transistors.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take a whole generation for most seed investments to bear fruit. In fact, the mean time to harvest for Oregon Venture Fund seed investments is just 4.5 years. Over the past 10 months, OVF and our region experienced a bumper crop of exits from recently planted seeds:

OVF invested in Salt & Straw in 2019 to fuel their expansion and bring their artisanal ice cream to locations up and down the West Coast. We feel so strongly about the potential of the team, the strategy, and the product that we made a 2nd investment in 2020 to help them add additional scoop shops in Florida. We have been delighted with their progress – the company has generated consistent, impressive growth with new locations and customers from coast to coast. But selling handmade, super-delicious ice cream has always been only part of the equation for founders Kim and Tyler Malek (cousins). They are on a mission to create community gathering places in walkable neighborhoods and arts districts, as well as marquee entertainment destinations. A Salt & Straw scoop shop is a place where you can run into neighbors, spend time with family, or treat yourself.

It’s no secret that students’ mental health is in harm’s way. Young people the world over are feeling more isolated, anxious and disengaged, exacerbated by the Covid pandemic. In the last decade, there has been a 76% increase in adolescent suicide attempts. 76%! Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among adolescents. Chances are you know someone who knows someone who has attempted (or succeeded with) suicide. It has become harder and harder to just be a kid.

While the pandemic continued to generate hardship & angst for many, 2021 was a year for the record books for the Oregon Venture Fund’s growing community of investors and portfolio entrepreneurs:

OVF invested a record $11 million in local startups this past year. We are particularly proud to welcome Cloud Campaign, TrovaTrip, RISE Brewing, and Wayfinder to our portfolio and venture community.

Venture capitalists love metaphors. And nowhere is this more prevalent than when we talk about a good startup “pitch” – the first meeting with an investor where you get to tell your story.

We like to say things like, a good first meeting is like a good first date. You want the person you are meeting to remember you and think you are interesting enough to get a second date. No one should be getting married after a first date.

One of the areas where we’ve experienced confusion between investors and entrepreneurs is getting to a common vocabulary for the current stage of a company. An entrepreneur might say, “We’re raising a $5m Series A to build our product and run pilots with 10 customers,” which in many cases sounds to an investor more like a seed or pre-seed investment rather than a Series A.

The Technology Association of Oregon (TAO) was kind enough to present me with a lifetime achievement award, which is wonderful recognition of what we have all accomplished as a fund and community.

OVF is very grassroots in origin and nature - it was created by our community, for our community; a community of hundreds of investors, local entrepreneurs, and organizational partners, including TAO. What we’ve accomplished, we’ve accomplished together.

Our thoughts are with our doctors and nurses working long hours; our parents and grandparents feeling isolated and scared; our families with children adjusting to life without school, extracurriculars, sports, and play dates; our employers facing abrupt losses and changes in demand; and pretty much everyone adversely impacted by this virus.

As early-stage investors, we’re often the first institutional partner of a founding team, and we’re all working together to grow a successful, self-sustaining company. That said, one of the first tasks of a startup board is to create an exit strategy and plan, knowing the plan will evolve and change over time as the company evolves and grows.

Danny Meyer came terrifying close to pursuing a career as a lawyer. In the early 1980s, Danny moved to New York City and took the LSAT exam. The experience of taking that test caused him to quickly decide that he really did not want to be a lawyer. His parents were not pleased. Instead, Danny took a job as a host at an Italian seafood restaurant. 2 years later, at age 27, he used all his savings to open his first restaurant: Union Square Café.