Less than a decade ago Puppet was one of a half-dozen startups remaking Portland’s entrepreneurial community. Puppet is now the city’s largest independent tech company and wants to be a parent to the next generation.

The software company has carved out space in its downtown headquarters and, beginning this fall, will host two-dozen young companies for free, five-month residencies. It’s a partnership with the Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE), which has sponsored successive generations of startups.

“Any large, successful company needs to have a toe in the entrepreneurial space,” said Puppet CEO Yvonne Wassenaar. She said the new innovation lab will help connect Puppet to its innovative roots while helping renew Portland’s startup scene.

“I’m just blown away by how many new, interesting ideas are percolating in the ecosystem,” Wassenaar said.

When PIE began hosting startups eight years ago it was backed by Wieden+Kennedy, Nike, Google, Intel and others. It evoked the high-octane startup incubators in the Bay Area and Seattle, which were launching billion-dollar businesses that helped reshape the technology sector.

Nothing similar emerged in Portland and PIE has evolved, now focusing on more conventional small businesses with narrow markets and clearly defined business objectives – with goals that sometimes prioritize social goods over entrepreneurial glory.

The roster of startups working with Puppet includes every type of business.

Among the participants:

· A Better Jones: A marketing firm for startups.

· Cosmic Life Dating app that matches prospective couples based on “astrological synergies.”

· Culturize: A service “for black creatives to protect and monitor their intellectual property.”

· HovrTek: Cost-effective drone images.

· Jacob’s Collective: Business resources for entrepreneurs from diverse communities.

· SaF: A service for hiring people to stand in line at restaurants in the Portland area.

· Symptrak: Technology to help mental health therapists monitor clients’ symptom management and treatment.

PIE’s backers originally provided investment in its startups in exchange for partial ownership of the startups. Puppet’s innovation lab comes with no direct funding and the startups keep their equity.

The entrepreneurs setting up shop at Puppet are far more diverse than Oregon’s tech ecosystem, which remains overwhelmingly white and male. Wassenaar said 90% of the founders include at least one member from an underrepresented group.

Puppet reconfigured its downtown office to carve out space for the startups. Wassenaar said the goal was to separate them from sensitive corporate work while keeping them in the social flow.

Puppet will encourage its employees to help mentor the startups while PIE will offer its own mentorship and support programs. Wassenaar said she expects this will be the first of many classes Puppet hosts.

Whether or not any member of this year’s class emerges as a major, standalone company, Wassenaar said she hopes participants come away with skills, support and experience necessarily to build and manage businesses.

“What’s most important to me,” she said, “is the experience people get.”

-- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699