Known as the Silicon Forest, Portland is seeing a new generation of software companies coming into their own.

This next generation of software startups is taking advantage of the cloud, the Internet of Things and the ever-increasing adoption of B2B SaaS tools to create amazing products that are invaluable to their clients.

However, this doesn’t mean the older generations are going away. Many existing software teams in Portland continue to grow and evolve their offerings. This has turned the area into a hub for new ideas and great talent.

Here are 25 software companies in Portland making work easier and more fun for the rest of us.

Act-On

This marketing automation software company works to improve brand awareness, customer retention and loyalty. Act-On is with you from the top of the funnel through the conversion process and will help you become a growth marketing hero. The company prides itself on knowledgeable customer service managers who are eager to help and enjoy a 98 percent customer satisfaction rating.

Airship

Airship (formerly Urban Airship) works to improve the way brands connect with customers on mobile and through apps. Marketing teams at companies like Sky, The Home Depot, and GameStop use Airship’s App Experience Platform to deliver mobile-first and value-packed acquisition, onboarding, engagement and retention campaigns. The results are impressive. GameStop, for instance, increased retention rates by 90% for their mobile wallet loyalty card.

Brandlive

Brandlive sees the power in combining live video with discussions as a tool for immersive product demonstrations, influencer cooperation and even robust tutorials. Since 2010, the company and its staff of 200 have been helping brands, influencers and everyone else host polished virtual events from its office in Portland, Oregon.

Bright.md

Bright.md acts as the “digital thread” that holds all of a healthcare organization’s offerings together. Its platform helps these companies streamline clinical workflows, making it easier to attract and retain patients, treat them effectively and reduce the burden on providers.

Specifically, the virtual care solution can reduce 90 percent of administrative workflows, lower patient wait-times to an average of six minutes, and drive patient loyalty through high customer satisfaction ratings.

CartHook

If you want to increase your eCommerce store’s average order value and total revenue, you need to deliver post-purchase offers. There’s an app for that. CartHook has produced the most post-purchase upsell revenue of any Shopify app for leading DTC brands like Kettle & Fire, Magic Spoon and Organifi.

ChatFox

Employees at remote companies don’t have the same opportunities to get to know each other —unless they use ChatFox, that is. This Slack app provides conversation starters like ice breakers, birthday announcements and recognition that can improve employee engagement. Conversation starters can be configured by CEOs, team leaders and HR departments to handle specific needs, too.

Sign reading Portland in downtown; portland software companies concept

Customer.io

Headquartered in Portland, Oregon and with a team located around the world, Customer.io is an automated and personalized messaging platform. Using real-time data, the tool helps you deliver the right message, exactly when it’s needed — like sending an event reminder over SMS or the perfect onboarding email. Leading tech brands like Notion, Reddit and IFTTT use the platform to transform their engagement strategy across email, SMS, push notifications and Slack.

Extensis

The team at Extensis has more than 20 years of experience in the publishing industry and have become experts in font management and digital asset management. Their easy-to-deploy software allows companies to maximize the value of digital content, streamline workflows, ensure compliance, and improve productivity. It makes it easy for creatives to store information and have access to their assets so they can focus on what they do best: making art.

Exterro

Exterro offers the industry’s only unified legal governance, risk and compliance software platform. There’s no shortage of individual apps for legal teams to leverage with a specific focus on e-discovery, privacy, digital forensics, and risk management. Designed specifically for in-house legal, privacy and IT teams, Exterro helps organizations address their regulatory, compliance, and litigation risks more effectively and at lower costs.

Jama Software

Jama works to simplify product and systems development. Their platform, Jama Connect, is used by some of the world’s most innovative companies to improve quality and compliance while reducing rework in order to get to market faster. In 2021, software marketplace G2 named Jama Connect the undisputed leader in the requirements management software space.

Lucid Meetings

Do you waste time in unproductive meetings? Lucid Meetings offers the software and training for your team to run successful meetings. It improves meeting prep, captures records and measures performance too. Meeting School, the company’s training platform, is the only online marketplace dedicated to meetings.

bridge; portland software companies concept

MakeWebBetter

MakeWebBetter is a leading provider of free and premium WooCommerce plugins to supercharge your store at every stage of development. Its plugins offer additional functionality that includes one-click upsells, gift cards, subscriptions and more. As WooCommerce experts, the company also provides a support service that can solve any store issue.

Lytics

Lytics uses first-party data to create comprehensive customer profiles across multiple channels to allow brands to better understand those customer journeys from awareness to purchase. By using the customer data platform, brands like Time, Universal Music Group and Live Nation optimize ad spend, increase email open rates and improve conversion rates.

Monsoon

Monsoon offers an end-to-end eCommerce solution for any retail brand looking to boost its performance on marketplaces. Inventory control, order fulfillment, automated listing and dynamic repricing are all included in the platform, which works with Amazon, eBay, Walmart and many other online marketplaces.

Opal

Opal is working to remove silos from marketing so all departments are on the same page. It achieves this through its planning platform. With the visibility and alignment this scalable calendar allows, marketing and communications teams at Fortune 500 brands and DTC startups can do their best work.

PayLynxs

Compliance is crucial for financial and gaming institutions. Automating the process decreases costs and reduces risks. That’s why casinos, credit unions and banks turn to PayLynxs suite of intelligent financial software that processes millions of transactions per day to analyze risk, improve remittance and fight financial crime.

Puppet

Puppet works with IT departments to increase automation and better manage their multi-cloud environments. Their solutions range from security compliance and cloud management to improving the deployment process of new code on a website. Puppet prides itself on delivering an inclusive environment and meaningful work to employees. Quartz names it in the top 10 best large companies for remote workers in 2021.

lighthouse; portland software companies concept

Teak

Teak is the ultimate game developer’s dream. It serves as a software platform that automates marketing strategies to reduce churn and monetize a developer’s products. It allows companies to know their players, re-engage with them when they start to leave, and market to them in more strategic ways.

Tripwire

Tripwire provides industry-leading security software for organizations of all sizes. Whether companies need system monitoring, compliance automation, network vulnerability management or uptime optimization, Tripwire delivers. Their solutions don’t just protect against cyber attacks; they find, monitor and minimize threats without disrupting productivity.

Vernier

Vernier works with educators to create interactive, teacher-friendly software tools to inspire students in STEM fields. This includes data collection software tools, lab emulators and graphical analysis systems to manipulate data. A leading innovator of scientific data-collection technology for over 30 years, Vernier is dedicated to developing creative ways to teach and learn using hands-on science.

Versa Cloud ERP

Traditional ERP solutions tend to be too expensive, too complex or lack functionality. Versa Cloud ERP is changing that with their versatile and easy-to-use small cloud ERP all-in-one software. The original platform was focused on small businesses, but the company has since expanded its offering to cater to eCommerce brands and enterprise clients.

Viewpoint

For over 40 years, Viewpoint has been a leader in the construction software space. Today, it offers a cloud-based suite that connects its clients’ entire operations and makes managing large-scale projects easier. Solutions include project management, operations, document and drawing management, field productivity, and building information modeling. The excellence of the company’s products is routinely recognized; they won collaboration product of the year in 2020 at The Construction Computing Awards.

WebTrends

WebTrends is the leading analytics platform for Microsoft 365 and custom apps. With custom dashboards and reports, flexible and customizable tracking, and customizable drill-downs, organizations get all the data they need to measure adoption, user engagement and usage.

Zapproved

Zapproved works with in-house legal departments to provide a cloud-based ediscovery platform. It allows teams to collect data from anywhere and store it in a safe method while monitoring the legal process throughout. Founded in 2008, Zapproved has quickly become the No. 1 litigation hold software on the market.

Zembula

Zembula is the only email platform eCommerce brands need to create dynamic and personalized emails for every type of campaign. Unique features include Smart Banner and Smart Block, real-time content blocks that update as soon as the email is opened. Zembula integrates with every major eCommerce platform, including Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce.

Images by: ©atmosphere1/123RF Stock Photo, ©jkraft5/123RF Stock Photo, diego_torres, DrRod

Amanda Dodge