Puget Sound Venture Club

Puget Sound Venture Club (PSVC) is Seattle's oldest angel investor group, founded in 1985 by Gary Ritner, who ran the club for 38 years and remains one of the most influential figures in Pacific Northwest angel investing. PSVC was founded with a straightforward mission: create a small, focused community of accredited investors who represent themselves or their organizations while providing access to the experience and insight of other members. The club's members invest in North American companies with an emphasis on the Pacific Northwest — Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia — at seed, early-stage, and first-round stages across most industries, from consumer and food businesses through high-tech and TMT. Across 38 years of operation, PSVC members past and present collectively invested approximately $220 million into more than 1,350 companies, many of which went on to significant outcomes. Notable alumni and companies that have presented to the club include Starbucks, DocuSign, Coinstar (later Outerwall), Clarisonic, Insitu, Theo Chocolate, Julep, and Otonexus. In September 2023, PSVC merged its membership into the Alliance of Angels (AoA) — the largest angel group in the Pacific Northwest, with approximately 160 investors backing more than 20 tech startups per year — with PSVC's roughly 30 members becoming AoA members. Gary Ritner retained ownership of the PSVC brand and joined AoA's Board of Directors. PSVC's nearly four-decade track record represents one of the most durable angel investor networks in the US Pacific Northwest. Its merger with AoA consolidates the region's angel capital into a single platform with greater deal volume, deeper geographic coverage, and a stronger institutional voice for startup-friendly policy in the Washington State ecosystem. The PSVC community and its historical investment culture continue under the combined AoA umbrella.