A Bountiful Harvest
Eric Rosenfeld - June 2022
I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planted it for me.
Likewise I am planting for my children. – Talmud
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:
Absci – Last summer, this game-changing synthetic biology R&D and manufacturing company raised $230M in the largest biotech IPO ever in the Greater Oregon region [NASD: ABSI].
Hubb – Last fall, Apollo-backed Intrado Digital Media acquired this event planning platform in an all-cash transaction.
Inpria – Late last year, this Corvallis-based OSU-spinout sold to JSR for $514M, marking the largest exit for an Oregon-grown advanced materials company.
The Wild – Three months ago, this collaborative extended-reality platform for architecture, engineering, and construction professionals was acquired by Autodesk, which employs a growing base of over 500 in Portland.
IOTAS – Providing solutions that enable smart apartments, this local software company was acquired by home security giant ADT earlier this month.
Like fruit harvested a bit too early, exits can be bitter-sweet. Other than publicly traded Absci, the above businesses are now local operations of larger acquirers. The good news is that, as with nearly every exited OVF-backed company, the acquired company will likely benefit from more resources and support – and grow faster and employ more – than if it had remained independent.
Importantly for our region, just as harvested fruit contain the seeds for a whole new generation of trees to start and grow, financial exits produce the capital and talent to seed a new generation of businesses to startup and grow. Absci has attracted over 200 data scientists and biochemists to our region. A portion will become local entrepreneurs, and a few have already become local investors.
Over the past 15 years, the 72 startups seeded by OVF and its investors have grown to be worth $4.2 billion and employ over 4,900 people. The wealth created by the creativity and hard work of our region’s entrepreneurs, in turn, helps support our local schools and parks, our local social service and cultural organizations, and a new generation of local startups. On average, a dollar invested by OVF leads to $21 in new wealth and every $26,000 invested by OVF creates a job in an emerging industry.
We’re grateful for this year’s bountiful harvest and especially for the sacrifices and hard work of the entrepreneurs behind each exit. That said, to paraphrase R.L. Stevenson, at OVF we don’t judge each day by the harvest we reap, but by the seeds we plant. Now, back to work!