• The Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center’s ARIE report rated the Portland region as among the 20 regions with the most high-earning entrepreneurs per capita.
• State action set the pace: Oregon paired CHIPS funding with temporary land-use authority to speed sites — while moving to better prioritize entrepreneurship and innovation.
• Demand is next door: With Nike, Adidas and other anchors, founders can run enterprise pilots and scale across a single metro market, even if the policy stack splits at the river.
In spring 2023, Salem changed course. Lawmakers passed the Oregon CHIPS Act to compete for federal semiconductor dollars and — especially notable for this famously deliberate state — gave the governor temporary land-use authority to fast-track industrial sites.
The signal was clear: Oregon would compete on speed, and judge success by purchase orders and local company growth.
It’s distinctive from its bigger northern neighbor Seattle, and Silicon Valley, just a short flight away.
The Pacific Northwest was lovingly satirized in the 2010s by the sketch comedy show Portlandia, which focused on eccentric hipsters and progressive politics. High-growth, venture-backable entrepreneurship didn’t fit that narrative, but the Portland region has developed this community too. It’s distinctive from its bigger northern neighbor Seattle, and Silicon Valley, just a short flight away. With statewide help, its entrepreneurial ecosystem is progressing.
In fact, the new report published by the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center featuring analysis by Heartland Forward argues Portland has become one of the country’s best at supporting fast-growth entrepreneurs.
The metro area is somewhat unusual in that it spans two states and a river. Known as the Portland–Vancouver–Hillsboro, OR–WA MSA, it crosses the Columbia, which divides Oregon to the south and Washington state to the north. Its primary economic development organization is Greater Portland Inc. Founders mostly treat it as one customer market, even if taxes, incentives and programs split at the state line.
Among Portland’s biggest tech startup successes is Expensify, a publicly traded expense-management company that maintains a renovated downtown bank building as its headquarters. Meanwhile, Nike’s Beaverton world HQ and Adidas North America’s Portland campus offer fertile ground for enterprise pilots in retail/footwear (plus, they’ve given the region a business-chic fashion vibe).
Statewide prioritization of semiconductor R&D, with Intel’s D1X Mod3 expansion in Hillsboro, reinforced the Westside as a global process-tech hub. That means it’s a supply-chain on-ramp for founders building tooling, metrology, automation and chip-adjacent software.
The Oregon CHIPS awards and other commercialization policies reflect a relatively well-governed and pro-innovation and entrepreneurship state house.
Entrepreneurial ecosystem organizing is active, and charmingly tracked by Silicon Florist, a decade-old blog, newsletter and vlog. But wider perception and fragmentation still drag. The “Portlandia” caricature lingers, and any region that spans two states knows the identity tension.
In the Nasdaq report, Portland was among the country’s 20 best at accelerating high-growth, high-earning entrepreneurs. But barely.
Among smaller regions, Portland’s entrepreneurs attract a relatively higher number of venture capital deals, reflecting repeat founders and adjacency to big capital markets (namely, Seattle and Silicon Valley). State investments in the semiconductor industry aim to generate a wider swath of tech jobs; not just software developers, but machinists too.
The takeaway: The same policy pragmatism that pushed Oregon CHIPS over the line can power a faster startup flywheel — if the region’s reputation is further extended, and entrepreneurs continue to love the lifestyle.
Download the report for see the metrics and the actions that will make it possible.
