We had two events today to wrap up our summer session of Portland Ten– co-sponsoring Lunch 2.0 LivePitch with FundingUniverse, NedSpace, and Stoel Rives, and then our closing social for the Portland Ten founders & their teams.

Lunch 2.0 LivePitch

Brock Blake and his crew from FundingUniverse came up from Salt Lake City, Utah to do the heavy lifting on the LivePitch event, and there was a great turnout from the startup & tech communities.

On the judging panel was Brock Blake, FundingUniverse, Ashleigh Williams, Willamette Venture Group, Eric Pozzo, Oregon Angel Fund, Todd Bauman, Stoel Rives, and myself representing Portland Ten.

5 companies presented, with JourneyGym winning the prize pack of startup professional services from Stoel Rives, FundingUniverse, and Portland Ten.

Much of the comments we heard from attendees was positive, in terms of what they learned about how to pitch, the feedback from the panel, and what they observed made a pitch either successful or not, and what factors contribute to a startup being "fundable".

Portland Ten Summer Founder’s Social

Once a month, we get the founders & their teammates/significant others together for a social. It’s critical that they take care of their team, and build in a bank of good karma and positive interaction to buffer the stressful times of working in a startup.

Tonight’s closing social was a blast. It’s been terrific to work with our summer founders, and as they graduate this week from their first 3 months with us in the program, we look forward to continuing to support them as they grow their companies over the next 15 months.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll transition our summer team into alumni status, and then come back in late September with our fall team of founders!