Besides being a great place for strong coffee and well-groomed beards, Portland, OR is growing quickly as a startup hub.
In the first quarter of this year, Oregon even overtook Washington in terms of venture capital investing for the first time since 1993.
Besides huge, established companies like Intel, Microsoft, IBM and eBay (which all have offices in Portland), the city is churning out a wealth of interesting startups.
"Portland tends to excel at platform plays, rather than consumer-facing companies,"Rick Turoczy, cofounder of a major Portland tech incubator, told Business Insider. "So while our companies aren’t generally household names, they’re often behind the scenes working their magic for some of the most well-known companies in the world."
Puppet Labs develops large-scale automation software.
According to Inc. Magazine's 2013 list of the 500 fastest growing companies, Puppet Labs grew 2,975% in the past three years.
It helps companies automate configuration management and infrastructure, which lets them cut costs and scale more effectively.
Some of the company's big name customers: Sony, Starbucks, HBO, Barnes and Noble, and the U.S. Federal Reserve System.
The Clymb not only sells outdoor gear, but also deals on amazing trips, too.
The Clymb, a company that sells outdoor gear and adventure travel packages, is oh-so Portland, and oh-so cool.
On The Clymb's community-based website (you need an invitation to join) you can buy name-brand outdoor accessories at enormous discounts. Plus, the site sells "human-powered" trips (like kayacking in Alaska or mountain biking through Ecudaor).
It was voted one of Outdoor Magazine's best places to work in 2012 and 2013.
Simple is a web-based bank that makes handling your money a breeze.
Simple started when CEO Josh Reich realized that too often banks make money by keeping customers confused.
So he swore that his online-only banking system, Simple, would never blast users with surprise fees and would make make it easier for users to set goals, save money, and track their spending.
Simple launched in 2012 and by and had processed more than $1 billion in transactions by summer 2013.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider