Meet the team

Jim Huston

Managing Director Emeritus, Founder

Two-decade track record in investment management for Intel (Internet Infrastructure and Software) and Exxon (Clean tech).

Jim has over 25 years of experience in early stage investing and advising for technological companies. Since 2022 he has focused primarily on climate tech investing. Before establishing PSF with Angela Jackson in 2011, Jim was Managing Director at Bay Area growth capital firm Blueprint Ventures, and Director of Strategic Investments at Intel Capital...

He has earned an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, a B.S. in engineering from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and has served as an adjunct professor at Portland State University and Lewis & Clark Law School.

Angela Jackson

Managing Director, Founder

An entrepreneur, seasoned investor and believer in people

Angela has 20 years of experience as a venture capitalist, angel investor, and advisor to startups in technology, consumer products, cleantech, and healthtech. She is a co-founder, general partner and managing director of Portland Seed Fund and its deeptech sister Intrepid Oregon Fund, which have invested in 200+ pre-seed and seed stage startups since inception in 2011.

Notable exits include Auth0 (acquired by Okta); Hubb (acquired by Intrado), and ESS Inc (NYSE:GWH). She was named Technology Association of Oregon's inaugural Tech Champion and Portland Business Journal's Women of Influence Executive of the Year/Entrepreneur.

Earlier in her career, Angela was venture partner at San Francisco-based Portfolia, investing in women-led companies; principal at the incubator/investment fund Emergent, and chair of OEN's Angel Oregon. She has served on the boards of Lumen Learning, Angel Capital Association and Crowd Supply (acquired by Mouser). She earned a M.A. in Environmental Studies (University of Oregon) and a B.A. in English and History (Boston University).

At heart, Angela is an entrepreneur and a believer in people. She has started and run numerous companies and community initiatives over the years. She led the Portland State Business Accelerator to national and global rankings, launched InventOregon and more recently, leads the Powerize Northwest Consortium on behalf of PSU, a public-private partnership to secure the region's energy future.

Jenn Lynch

Managing Director

Ten years experience with B2B SaaS in product design and functionality.

Jenn is a Managing Partner of Portland Seed Fund leading the fund's financial and investor relations functions. She is an investing partner with Portland Seed Fund II and Portland Seed Fund III, and an advisor to Portland Seed Fund IV. As a managing partner, she has been part of these funds' investments in more than 100 early-stage companies and exits including Auth0 (to Okta) and Sightbox (to Johnson & Johnson).

Previously to Portland Seed Fund, Jenn was a director at Upstart Labs and StepChange Group, two Portland-based web development agencies with a focus on social media applications. The two companies serviced clients ranging from Disney and Clorox to startups, with notable exits from the agency's venture portfolio including acquisitions by Amazon and VRBO. Prior to her agency work, Jenn spent a decade in software product management and product marketing with a focus on human resources software-as-a-service. She managed hiring software product management at Kronos, Yahoo! Hotjobs and BrassRing.

Jenn also manages an annual angel group in Bend, Oregon (Bend Venture Conference); mentors founders through her work with both PSF and BVC; and is a regular contributor to regional conferences and events as a panelist and moderator on innovation and venture capital. Since 2019, Jenn has served as the Governor-appointed Chair of the Oregon Innovation Council, the State of Oregon's public-private partnership to catalyze commercialization of research and innovation. With a budget of $20 million, the portfolio of startups served by Oregon InC generates hundreds of millions of dollars in additional leverage including venture capital, grants and debt support in each biennium.

Jenn was elected to the Bend-La Pine SD1 school board in 2025. She founded Oregon's Alliance For Gun Safety, served on the board of Oregon Public Broadcasting for a decade, and chaired the board of Portland's Schoolhouse Supplies for more than five years. Jenn holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in Journalism from the Medill School at Northwestern University.

Steve Eichenlaub

Managing Director

Decades of experience operating and investing in seed and early stage start ups.

Steve has been associated with PSF since 2014, initially as a limited partner in PSF II and III in support of Portland Seed Fund’s Fund's mission, and now as a Managing Director of Portland Seed Fund IV and Intrepid Oregon Fund I. He brings extensive venture capital, operating, and M&A experience, accumulated over decades in both start-ups and publicly-traded corporations, to bear on investing in and nurturing the next generation of compelling start-ups. For example, just prior to PSF he was COO at M-SIX, a Portland-based SaaS startup, helping grow the company up to and beyond its successful exit. Ahead of that, for over a decade he was a Managing Director in Intel Capital, leading and managing the strategy, deal structuring and post-investment efforts on over 100 investments tied to the strategic interests of Intel Labs...

He then worked inside Intel Labs applying seed startup concepts to convert raw technologies into viable prototypes with a compelling business value proposition that would then “exit” to an Intel product group. Throughout, his passion is to learn from others, and to help maximize business value built on founder vision and resilience, resulting in well-differentiated solutions to important problems. Steve holds a B.S. in Electrical and Nuclear Engineering from UC Berkeley, and an M.B.A from Harvard Business School.

Shashi Jain

Venture Partner

Fostering Innovation, Investing in Tomorrow's Entrepreneurs, and Empowering Communities Through Technology and Education.

Shashi Jain is a Venture Partner at the Portland Seed Fund, guiding investment and development of early-stage deep technology companies. Prior that that, he served Intel Corporation as a Senior Strategic Innovation Manager, pathfinding new applications in Internet of Things, Healthcare, AI for Space applications and Blockchain. He is an experienced corporate entrepreneur with a track record of incubating ideas that go to production. He builds frameworks such as the KPI Compass, Decision Quality Canvas, and the Startup Ladder for building and measuring innovation programs...

Outside of work, he organizes the Portland 3D Printing Lab community, 3D prints prosthetic hands for kids via the eNABLE community, teaches innovation and entrepreneurship to high school students through TYE Oregon, and actively mentors early stage startups. He co-Founded Makerforce, a non-profit that brings together Makers and Manufacturers to respond to emergencies like the COVID19 pandemic.

Contact Us

Phone
(503) 419 3007

Email

info@portlandseedfund.com