The entrepreneur support program known as the Oregon Technology Business Center (OTBC) has announced that it will change its name to the Oregon Startup Center (OSC), effective immediately.
“The name change recognizes that the 18-year-old program has worked with many types of startup and fledgling companies, not just technology companies, through its seven-year Beaverton Startup Challenge and its statewide Virtual Incubation Program, which provides training to entrepreneurs throughout Oregon,” said Jim McCreight, OSC executive director.
In addition to providing early-stage financing and training, OSC mentors and helps founders gain access to experienced entrepreneurs and business service providers. The name change comes in recognition of the program’s expansive vision of business startups, and its skills, networks, expertise, and long time-experience helping startups of all types address problems related to customer discovery, financial literacy, investor readiness, and scaling for success. “OTBC has been a tremendous resource for many emerging businesses in Beaverton,” said Mayor Beaty. “This new name better reflects the breadth of work that they do, and I hope this helps more entrepreneurs discover the services they offer.”
The incubator has been recognized as offering the highest-acclaimed startup mentoring in the state, according to a study by Portland State University, and Oregon’s most advanced startup curriculum (VIP). The Oregon Community Foundation, the Ford Family Foundation, and the U.S. Dept. of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration have all provided grants to support VIP training in rural Oregon, which participants have included 146 founders of all types of businesses.
Since 2016, when OTBC founded the Beaverton Startup Challenge—a program that provides seed/angel funding for startup-companies. The challenge has invested $25,000 in each of 35 firms. By 2022, OTBC had invested $864,000 in the startups (funds from the City of Beaverton matched by private investors). Those companies subsequently closed on more than $95 million in follow-on funding, or 227 times the city’s investment.
Firms aided by the incubator include technology, consumer products, food production, travel, marketing, and service firms, among others. They include women and BIPOC-owned firms.
The incubator was founded in 2004 as the Open Technology Business Center and served open source software firms, but it changed its name to Oregon Technology Business Center in 2006 to recognize that it was opening its doors to all technology sectors. Since then, the doors have swung even wider in keeping with the program’s mission to support firms that will create innovations and community wealth and serve the economy and people of Oregon.
