Oregon Venture Fund Research
Investment Thesis
Oregon Venture Fund (OVF) is a regional venture fund, founded in 2007 as the Oregon Angel Fund, that backs startups and growth companies in Oregon and Southern Washington. Its tagline is "Investing Locally. Scaling Globally." The stated filter is "insanely great teams" targeting large opportunities with "must-have" solutions that make the world better. The fund is deliberately sector-agnostic: its own portfolio page groups companies into materials science and cleantech, life science and health tech, consumer products and services, networks and IoT, media and edtech, data, AI and security, financial tech, marketing and sales tech, and software platforms.
Model: Fund Plus Venture Partner Network
OVF pairs a small professional team with a network of roughly 180 venture partner investors, about 85-90% of whom have founded or run a company. Venture partners help with deal flow, diligence, advising and portfolio support, and OVF matches each company with the most relevant partner champions. Companies load a deck onto Gust, where partners can see it, or email the fund directly. Ready companies go through a "diligence sprint" that aims at a yes or no decision in weeks, not months.
Stage Focus
OVF invests from pre-seed through Series A and later growth rounds. It says no startup is too early, and half of its initial investments are in pre-revenue companies. The team page describes diligence for $500K to $5M checks from pre-seed through Series A.
Check Size
Initial checks run $500K to $5M, with up to $10M invested in a company over its life. The fund targets about $20M a year across 8 to 10 startups and growth companies (LinkedIn cites $15-20M annually).
Lead Tendency
The fund says it likes to lead financings but is also happy to follow, so lead tendency is both.
Geographic Focus
A hard regional requirement: at least one founder or key executive must have a primary residence in Oregon or Southern Washington.
Track Record and Portfolio Highlights
OVF reports 89 startups funded, more than $217M invested, $2.1B in follow-on capital, and $6.9B in total market capitalization of its companies. It cites a 16% average net IRR and 3.14X average value since 2007, top quartile per PitchBook. Notable portfolio names include Customer.io (email and messaging automation), Arctic Wolf (security operations, an exited position), Salt & Straw (ice cream), Hydrolix (data), Eclypsium (firmware security), Absci (AI drug discovery), TrovaTrip (group travel), Wayfinder (workforce and talent), Wicked Saints Studios (gaming), Conveyor (security questionnaires) and Inpria (semiconductor materials). Exits are listed separately on the site; Arctic Wolf is the one shown on the exited-companies section.
Recent Activity
OVF is marking its 20th anniversary with a stories campaign on its site. In January 2026 it published "Eight Companies to Watch in 2026", naming portfolio companies generating $10M to $150M in revenue. It appears to be actively deploying; no new fund close was found in public sources. Its investor base includes the Oregon Community Foundation, and it runs a Community Giving Fund for donating portions of gains.
Team
- Eric Rosenfeld: Fund Development; former engineer and entrepreneur
- Alline Akintore: Research and Diligence; leads thesis development across enterprise software, fintech and life sciences
- Deepthi Madhava: Diligence and Investment Sourcing
- Melissa Freeman: Capital Raising and Investor Relations; main contact for LPs
- Matt Compton: Portfolio Success; technology operator, board director and investor
- Lynn Fletcher: Operations
- Mary Geyer: Fund Accounting and Data
Decision Process
A collaborative process: venture partners review deals on Gust, a champion partner engages, and the OVF team runs a diligence sprint before a funding decision. Exact governance (committee vs. GP) is not published.
Founder Preferences
Local, ambitious teams with large market targets and must-have products. Warm intros are not required; the fund explicitly welcomes inbound through Gust or [email protected], and meets companies at any stage.
Gaps
Fund size and AUM are not published, and no partner emails or LinkedIn URLs were found for individual team members.