How An Oregon Twist On Venture Funds Has Paid Off For The Community As Well As The Investors
On this edition of Making Oregon, our guest is Eric Rosenfeld, co-founder of the Oregon Angel Fund ("OAF”), headquartered in Portland. (www.oregonangelfund.com) OAF started in 2007 as an interesting collaborative experiment, combining the collective minds and experience of angel investors and entrepreneurs, with the typical discipline and rigor of a venture capital fund. A 4th generation Oregonian and former entrepreneur, Eric will talk to us about his path to the genesis of the fund, and the other innovative twist that he and his co-founders devised to make OAF one of the most unique, and most successful, angel funds in the United States. He’ll also talk about the key qualities and characteristics the fund looks for in a startup, and of its founders, before taking the risk and making an investment. It’s been a real marriage of talent and capital that have now supported 50 Oregon companies over 10 years. We’ll chat about the overall Oregon and Portland venture capital and financing landscape, and Eric will offer his perspectives on what it would take to speed up the cycle of local & organic wealth creation and reinvestment in Oregon, and drive a more robust entrepreneurial economy. Lastly, we’ll discuss how OAF and its investors go beyond just angel investing to provide help and mentorship to business founders over a wide range of industries and verticals, as a key player in a community and state that strives to support entrepreneurship in all of its forms.