Mark Graves/The Oregonian

It’s been a sluggish few years for the Silicon Forest’s young tech companies.

Venture capitalists seemed to have lost interest in Oregon, and the region's funding environment dried up. Excluding a big private equity investment in Vacasa, there was negligible venture investment in Oregon startups during 2017.

What a difference a year makes. Or maybe just a week.

In the past seven days alone, investors have poured more than $280 million into Oregon tech companies. They’re backing brand-new startups and established businesses that have been around for a decade or longer.

And there’s been a steady stream of investment the entire year. The sudden uptick reflects renewed investor enthusiasm for startups, encouraging signs in the IPO market, and the broad economic revival lifting Oregon’s and the nation’s economy.

That's a welcome reversal, as the nation's tech sector has been consolidating in a few large metropolises – a club that excludes Portland.

Portland is dominated by outposts of Amazon, Apple, eBay, Google and New Relic, among others. Those big employers make the hiring market more competitive for startups and make entrepreneurship less appealing for innovators who have plenty of less risky options locally.

Yet the early returns from 2017 suggest Portland still has appeal to the investment community. Here’s a look at some of this year’s biggest investments in Silicon Forest tech.

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Jama Software, $200 million

If this were a pure venture capital round, then Tuesday's deal might be the biggest in Oregon history – and one of the biggest in years across the entire Pacific Northwest.

Jama wouldn’t provide financial terms, though, and described it as a “growth equity investment” from Insight Venture Partners that cashes out some prior investors while providing financing for the Portland company.

Whether it was a private equity deal or venture capital is, in some sense, a semantic question. What’s clear is Jama, whose technology helps companies from Caterpillar to SpaceX manage product development, now has the capital to pursue its very ambitious goals.

"I really believe that Jama has the ability to grow to be a large software player, and I think Portland needs more standalone software companies that are growing to a significant size and scale," said Jama chief executive Scott Roth.

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Exterro, more than $100 million

The Beaverton legal technology company sold a big piece of itself for a sum somewhere north of $100 million last month. It's unclear how much of the money goes to Exterro's prior investors and how much will be used for growth, but the deal put the low-profile company on the map.

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Mark Graves/The Oregonian

nLight Corp., $96 million

Founded in 2000, nLight makes lasers in its Clark County factory for electronics and industrial manufacturers all over the world. Its April IPO was the first for a Silicon Forest tech company in nearly 14 years.

The company raised $96 million selling shares at $16 apiece. Investors couldn’t get enough. The stock is up 130 percent from that offering price, and nLight is now one of the region’s most valuable public companies, with a market cap of nearly $1.3 billion.

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Vetsource, $50 million

The Gresham company raised $50 million from Bain Capital Ventures this month for its technology, which provides veterinarians with online prescription tools and enables them to ship directly to customers' homes.

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Puppet, $42 million

One of Portland's largest tech companies, Puppet has now raised $128 million, including Wednesday's deal.

Puppet, once an IPO candidate, appears to be relying on the private markets to fund its operations. The company, which automates management of software inside large computing networks, is facing a more complex and competitive environment as alternative technologies emerge.

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Urban Airship, $25 million

The Portland company pioneered technology for push alerts on smartphones. Now it's pushing a variety of mobile marketing products. The company raised $25 million for that effort last week.

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SheerID, $18 million

The Portland company verifies online identities so marketers can offer discounts to select customers, but not everyone. For example, it can help identify college students (above), teachers or members of the military.

It raised its latest round in January.

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RealWear, $17 million

The Vancouver augmented reality company raised $17 million in February from Columbia Ventures, a seasoned Clark County firm that has previously invested in a range of businesses, from Icelandic aluminum smelters to a housing development in Texas.

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Rigado, $15 million

Last week’s investment will help the company, with offices split between Portland and Salem, develop and market its wireless technology. The company’s software and hardware enables shippers, factories, retailers and warehouses track and manage activity in their facilities.

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Bumped, $14 million

The Portland company closed its first investment round Thursday. Founded and led by former Giftango CEO David Nelsen, Bumped wants to enable customer loyalty programs that offer stock in publicly traded companies in lieu of cash or product rewards.

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Lytics, $14 million

The Portland marketing analytics company raised $14 million in April.

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Fleet, $10 million

Founded by 22-year-old Max Lock, the downtown Portland company raised $10 million in January for technology to help small and midsize businesses import supplies and ship products around the world.

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