Seven Peaks Ventures Corrals $28 Million to Accelerate Startup Growth in Pacific Northwest and Western US Regional Startup Hubs

BEND, Ore., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Seven Peaks Ventures, Oregon's leading early-stage venture capital firm according to CB Insights, today announced the close of its second fund, Seven Peaks Ventures II, with $28 million to foster growth of early-stage technology startups in the Pacific Northwest and Western U.S. Leading institutional investors in the Northwest, including the State of Oregon and the OSU Foundation, as well as other institutions, family offices and return limited partners committed capital to the fund.

In addition to the new fund, Seven Peaks launched an advisor and corporate resources platform to assist entrepreneurs in growing and scaling their businesses. Additionally, the fund has expanded its Bonfire event portfolio with the monthly Bonfire Podcast series and rebranded its bi-annual cornerstone event, now called Bonfire Collective.

"Seven Peaks Ventures launched in 2013 to address the capital and business-building expertise gap that existed in the Northwest's early-stage market, particularly in Oregon. Over the past five years, we've worked hard to claim a spot for Oregon on the map as a viable hub for capital and a great place to start a business," said Dino Vendetti, Seven Peaks founder and managing director. "In that time, we've expanded our team, advisors and events portfolio to provide the highest level of coaching and support to entrepreneurs in the Northwest and beyond in other dynamic Western U.S. markets."

Notable investments from Seven Peaks I include Portland-based CrowdStreet, a marketplace investment platform that is disrupting the commercial real estate market; Opal, a marketing collaboration platform whose customers include dozens of Fortune 500 companies; and digital healthcare platform Bright.md, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to assist with patient visits in hospital systems nationwide. Seven Peaks provided the first institutional capital to these companies and has been instrumental in helping them raise follow-on rounds of funding to fuel their growth.

To date, Seven Peaks II has invested in seven portfolio companies, including Trusona, Matcherino, Metricstory, Owl Insights, Cricket Health, Torch 3D and ZAPinfo.

Expanded Resources for Regional Entrepreneurs
The Seven Peaks team has grown to four general partners, including Vendetti: DocuSign co-founder Tom Gonser; former Philips executive Corey Schmid; and former Oracle executive Matt Abrams. Former Thomson Reuters Division CEO Tony Abena joined as an operating partner; and five-time founder Dave Parker joined as a venture partner in Seattle.

The Seven Peaks investment approach is purpose-built to surround portfolio founders with the help and resources they need at each unique stage of growth and scale. "Our team is architected and sized intentionally as if we operated a fund 10 times its size. This ensures we can provide the deepest and broadest support to the entrepreneurs we invest in," said General Partner Tom Gonser.

Through its newly launched advisor and corporate resources platform, Seven Peaks will provide additional critical resources to help its entrepreneurs build enduring, high-growth businesses. Platform advisors are serially successful leaders and innovators in their respective industries. As an extension of the partner team, each advisor can provide current, tailored, real-world counsel and access to a broad network of relationships that can be helpful to Seven Peaks entrepreneurs. 

Bonfire Collective and Curated Events Portfolio
Seven Peaks further supports entrepreneurs with curated events that create value in companies and communities by engaging collective, inclusive conversations. Seven Peaks is rebranding its popular Bonfire event series as Bonfire Collective, to be held in Spring 2019. In 2016, the first Bonfire convened CEOs, investors, founders and enterprise leaders from across the nation to dive deeper into what it takes to build successful startups. The success of Bonfire triggered a monthly podcast series featuring interviews with leaders and experts from a variety of domains on topics around accelerating regional startup growth, including impacts at the company and broader ecosystem levels. 

"In just a few years, we've expanded our partnership, opened offices in Portland and Seattle, worked closely with Oregon State University to open a campus in Bend and built a tech center and workspace to create entrepreneurial momentum in our own local community. It's been busy," Vendetti said, "and it's also been a lot of fun watching this take off. In fact, our first fund is one of the top 10 early-stage funds nationwide, according to Pitchbook. We're proud of what we're doing to create jobs and support entrepreneurs in this region and beyond."

Seven Peaks is actively investing in founding teams who are passionate about creating game-changing technology for the enterprise, including data and AI, FinTech, HRtech, digital health, identity/security, and cloud infrastructure.

About Seven Peaks Ventures
Seven Peaks Ventures is Oregon's leading early stage venture capital fund that invests in passionate entrepreneurs who are building the next generation of scalable technology companies in thriving innovation hub communities throughout the Pacific Northwest and Western U.S. As experienced entrepreneurs, investors and startup executives, the Seven Peaks team applies  decades of experience in digital health, data and artificial intelligence, FinTech, HRtech, identity/security, and cloud infrastructure to help provide founders an "unfair advantage" as they grow and scale their businesses. For more information, please visit www.sevenpeaksventures.com.

SOURCE Seven Peaks Ventures

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