Portland's Ensequence lands $20 million, moves HQ to New York |
Follow the ups and downs of a new Seattle startup in a series of behind-the-scenes posts by its founders.
It's been a big week for venture funding deals in the Northwest. A day after Calypso Medical announced a $50 million round, interactive TV startup Ensequence today said that it pulled in $20 million.
But the Ensequence round is a bit of a good news-bad news story for the Northwest, since Mike Rogoway at The Silicon Forest blog reports that the Portland company is also moving its headquarters to New York.
The 100-person company, which had raised $97 million and was Oregon's most heavily-funded startup, also promoted Peter Low (a former MTV exec who lives in New York) to the position of CEO.
This isn't the first time that a promising company has bolted from Oregon. In July, we reported that AVI Biopharma was moving its headquarters from Corvalis to Seattle to be closer to the life sciences talent pool.
I also recently called out Entrepreneur Magazine for recognizing Portland over Seattle for its entrepreneurial community. But I don't wish any harm on our friendly neighbor to the south, that is until the Sounders meet the Timbers in Major League Soccer action
In fact, if this trend continues of promising companies moving out of Portland, the city is going to have to take a very close look in the mirror.
John Cook is co-founder and executive editor of TechFlash. He has been covering the technology beat for nearly a decade, writing about startups, entrepreneurs and venture capital, most recently serving as a reporter/blogger at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
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