2014 Portland Company of the Year: Puppet Labs

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Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Annie Ellison, GoLocalPDX Reporter

The secret's out: Portland is no longer a place where young people go to retire. In 2014, the spirit of entrepreneurialism and the technology sector boosted Portland’s economy and drew thousands of young, educated people to the city.

Puppet Labs' dedication to fostering startup culture and entrepreneurs in Rose City makes it GoLocalPDX's Portland company of the year.  The company, at 330 employees and growing, specializes in open-source server automation software. 

Rather than move to the Bay Area, Puppet Labs not only put down roots in Portland, but nurtured seedlings, too. Following a move to Portland in 2009 from Nashville, TN, Puppet Labs outgrew its space four times, finally landing in a 75,000 square foot space in downtown Portland's Block 300 this year. 

PuppetLabs spokesperson Justin Dorff said giving back to the Portland startup community is a priority for the company. "Portland has been great for us, and we want to help other Portland startups get started and to keep growing," he said. 

A home for startups 

The company makes its office available to groups including AdaCamp Portland, Portland Startup Weekend, Include. Innovate. Invest. Portland., Portland DevOps User Group, and Agile PDX. One successful Portland-based startup, Cloudability, lived in PuppetLabs' space while it was getting off the ground, Dorff said.

CEO and founder Luke Kanies mentors Portland-based startups through his volunteer roles on the Technology Association of Oregon board and through tech business initiatives with the Mayor's office. 

"With Startup Weekend they’ve been such an incredibly supportive company of startups," said Startup Weekend PDX organizer Travis Cannon. "They are the shining example of growing beyond a startup company, but they never lost that spirit." 

Kanies even mentored Puppet Labs employee Jay Wallace, who participated in one Startup Weekend, on his emerging project, Bubblr. 

2014 was another banner year for the company, ranked the country's 42nd fastest growing private company. Puppet Labs was listed to the Deloitte Fast 500. In the last three years, its revenue has grown 3,832 percent. Kanies moved the company to Portland for its livability, and is not planning to leave any time soon. 

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