Portland State of Charge: Batteries at PNW Climate Week

Event Details: The gap between Oregon’s battery technology and Oregon’s capital has widened. Q1 2026 Portland-metro VC hit a 10-year low, down ~65% year-over-year. Oregon’s battery founders have kept building anyway. The PNW Battery Collaborative and E8 Angels are co-hosting Portland State of Charge as the Portland anchor for PNW Climate Week 2026 — an afternoon built around that gap. Hosted by Duncan Miller (PNW Battery Collaborative Portland chapter; E8 Angels Oregon hub liaison). Panel moderated by Jim Huston, Portland Seed Fund (founder), E8 Angels (board), Intrepid Oregon, and Intel Capital (former managing director). Jim is the full spectrum of early-stage Oregon climate capital in one person. Format: Two acts. First, four Oregon battery founders each give an 8-minute lightning talk pitching what they’re building — long-duration storage, EV infrastructure, battery manufacturing tech, public-company scale. Then the same founders sit on a moderated panel working through how Oregon battery tech actually gets funded: what the capital stack looks like today, what it took to get…