451 CAOS Theory 
A blog for the enterprise open source community
Compiere raises funds, moves to Silicon Valley
Raven Zachary, June 20, 2006 @ 4:28 pm ETCompiere, an open source ERP company, announced today that they have raised $6M U.S. from NEA (New Enterprise Associates) and are moving from Portland to Silicon Valley. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk with Jorg Janke, Compiere’s CEO, about this news yet. Jorg recently moved the company from Monroe, Connecticut, to Portland, Oregon, and I am bit surprised that he’s moving again – this time into the center of a highly-constrained recruiting market. Then again, NEA has an office on Sand Hill Road (in Menlo Park, CA), and with the venture money now, Jorg can afford to operate a company there!
It’s no secret that I like the geographically diverse nature of open source. There is nothing about open source that is particularly related to Silicon Valley – it’s a global phenomenon. The connection relates to the amount of technology venture capital and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, but there’s no reason why an open source company cannot be successful outside of California. We’ve already seen some great proofs of this. California is full of some very smart people, and it remains the center of the software business world, but it’s not the entirety of the software business world.
As I am in the process of moving to Portland, I am not too happy about Compiere’s decision to move, but that is entirely for personal reasons. The city is trying to position itself as an open source center, and it’s one of the reasons that I am moving there. Portland’s contribution to open source has mostly been with Linux – it’s the home of Linus Torvalds, the OSDL, and Linux innovation centers by Intel, IBM, and others. Losing a non-Linux company is a move in the wrong direction for a city that’s trying to build a robust, diverse, tech economy around “open” businesses.
Comments (6) Categories: Funding,Software
Portland is becoming a magnet for open source, but I also appreciate the geographically diverse nature of open source. Many companies (MySQL, for example) hire open source developers regardless of physical location resulting in a diverse workforce spread around the world.
I am a bit partial to Portland. I have lived here for the past 5 years, and I love the area!
Hi, Dawn. As you mentioned with MySQL, more and more companies are supporting telecommuting. This is especially true with software development where it’s easy to gauge the productivity of an individual contributor. The lead developer for JasperSoft lives in Romania and several of the JBoss contributors are in Switzerland – both US companies. I’m moving to Portland the week before OSCON. Lots to do!
Hi, Raven. I’m a journalist in Portland who pays attention to the open source “industry” and was wondering how significant Compiere’s relocation really is, especially when coupled with the defection of the two founders of Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab (who are joining a non-open-source startup in Portland.) How much of a “move in the wrong direction” is it?
From a regional perspective only – Compiere is a loss. They are leaving. Compiere, while a small company, has strong brand recognition when it comes to open source applications. With Scott and Jason leaving OSUOSL, this is a loss for open source in the region, but they are doing a startup, which could be a success. At least Oregon is keeping Scott and Jason!
New York is the same way I believe…Good info tho!
[...] was first made public as part of its $6m funding announcement early this year (press release). I blogged about this in June, when I was on the verge of my own relocation…to [...]