pacific-northwest
(5)
FUSE Is Betting Seattle’s Best Network Can Beat Silicon Valley’s Biggest Checkbook
The six-year-old venture firm has more than $420 million to deploy and a deliberately local edge: turn the Pacific Northwest’s operators, buyers and repeat founders into an unfairly useful network for the next generation.
The Fund Built to Turn UW Lab Coats Into Cap Tables
Ken Horenstein spent years watching University of Washington research spin out billion-dollar companies for investors somewhere else. Pack Ventures is his answer: a fund that shows up on day zero, before the pitch deck is polished.
The Quiet Business of Making Sure You Actually Own Your House
The Talon Group built a title and escrow operation on a strange promise - that the most important day of your financial life should be completely uneventful.
The Internet Company Digging Its Way Out of Cable's Past
Ziply Fiber inherited an old Northwest telephone network and made a blunt bet: keep digging until fiber reaches the places larger providers skipped. Now the same company selling home broadband is carrying 400-gigabit traffic between Seattle and Chicago.
Umpqua Bank
A timber town built a bank so workers would not have to cash paychecks at the tavern. Seventy-two years later, the name disappeared - but Umpqua's experiment in making banking feel human still echoes through the West.