Venture Fund Member Profile
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Sometimes we invest or bring in other investors. Other times, we join as a board member or an advisor. It’s our passion to find potentially great companies and guide them to exit.
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Rick Gibson
Angel Investor
Hot Ventures |
Rick Gibson has had a 38-year career building businesses. He founded and co-founded several successful technology companies and has advised over (75) others. He is 60-years old. Since 2000, Rick has served as Managing Director of HOTventures, a "mentor capital fund" for the Southwest U.S., which invests in and advises fast-growth companies, in a range of domains as diverse as Ballistic Armor to Agriculture, including Information Technology, Health Sciences, GreenTech and Media. As an investor and entrepreneurial activist, he’s totally immersed in early-stage growth companies...finding them and making them great. Rick’s been involved with several companies that have had liquidity events. Rick has also served as an expert witness regarding technology business cases.
Rick has been an investor, advisor or board member in: Avisere, Beamz, The Book Patch, Bourque Industries, CopperKey, DarkPulse, DueBook, EquiSight, Flypaper, Funding Universe (now Lendio), LabTrack, LifeBot, Medipacs, MedSphere, MDS VetInfo, Mobile Authentication Corp (MAC), MojoVideo, MSDx, NuvoMed, Octopi, Real Time Companies, Sokikom, StrongWatch, World Wide Wheat and Zero Waste Wines. He has been a limited partner in Solstice Capital II (one of the largest venture capital funds in Arizona) and is an early shareholder in Bill Gross’ Idealab and a partner in Elite Desert Ventures.
In Tucson, for many years Rick served on the Executive Board and still the Screening Committee of the Desert Angels, and is on the board and is Mentor-Emeritus for UA’s Arizona Center for Innovation (AZCI). For several years, was Adjunct Instructor and then Practitioner Faculty for UA’s Eller School Entrepreneurship Program, and also served on UA’s MBA Advisory Council.
In Phoenix, Rick was on the board of Arizona State University's Technopolis and was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, an instructor for both the LaunchPad and LaunchPrep entrepreneurship programs, and a mentor for ASU TechBA, coaching companies from Mexico. He is on the Executive Committee, Selection Panel and chair of the Angel Investor committee for the Invest Southwest Capital Conference. He is an advisor to an ASU team in NSF’s I-CORPS program and The Green Chamber: Greater Phoenix. He was creator of "Entrepreneur's Resource Guide" for bizAZ magazine and a member of the Philanthropic Development Council of the Banner Alzheimer's Foundation. Rick participates as a director/mentor for the Tallwave ‘Labs’ accelerator program and continues as a judge for the AZ Commerce Dept’s ‘Arizona Innovation Challenge’.
In Flagstaff, Rick is on the Executive Board and is Treasurer of the NACET incubator (Northern Arizona Center for Emerging Technologies) and is also a mentor.
Elsewhere, Rick has been a judge for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, and on the Angel Capital Association’s National Collaboration Committee. He was a guest instructor for the Power of Angel Investing seminar for Angel Capital Association Summit. He is a judge for the Arizona Innovation Challenge. Rick often pinch-hits as the Mentor for the FundingPost workshops.
Rick was an early shareholder in Bill Gross' Idealab and founded one of its first companies, E-Ticket Inc, which merged with the Nederlander Organization's RealTime Syndication Network to become FeatureCast Inc. Rick served as Vice-Chairman. FeatureCast secured the online license for and executive-produced: Fox's America's Most Wanted, Teen Magazine and National Enquirer. Rick participated in strategic planning with the ten original Idealab CEOs. Idealab is known for its creation and investment of several well-known technology companies including: Overture (acquired by Yahoo), United Online (was NetZero and Juno), Aptera, Internet Brands, CitySearch, Energy Innovations, eSolar, Desktop Factory, Picasa, Tickets.com, eToys and Evolution Robotics. [See http://idealab.com]. 1998-2000, Rick was an advisor to the board of directors of Petersen Publishing, producers of 100+ magazines including Motor Trend, Hot Rod and Teen.
Rick co-founded GNP Development Corp and in 1986 they sold it to Lotus Development Corp for $10 million. In 1991, they co-founded Knowledge Adventure Inc, which in 1996 they sold to Cendant for $100 million. Knowledge Adventure became the world's largest children's CD-ROM edutainment software company (almost $400 million in annual revenues), owned by Vivendi-Universal, known for its 'JumpStart' (20 million units sold) and ‘Blaster’ series.
1986 through 1991, Rick consulted to several software companies including Ashton-Tate, Que Software/Macmillan and SPSS Inc, and arranged sales of technology to Symantec, Microlytics and Paramount Publishing. Rick directed a division of Ashton-Tate and was Chairman of 4-5-6 WORLD, a direct marketer of Lotus products. Earlier, Rick directed national sales and or marketing and helped start or re-start: Fisher Corp, KLH, Ultralinear and Androbot Inc (the personal robot start-up by Nolan Bushnell, who founded Atari and Chuck E Cheese). Rick began his career as one of the first store managers for The GAP Inc, which now has about 3,200 stores worldwide including Old Navy and Banana Republic.
Representative Investments
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Medsphere OpenVista, world-class Patient Record System based on VA Hospital System’s Vista software |
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DarkPulse Technologies Optic fiber sensing technology which allows real-time location-sensitive awareness of temperature and strain in mining, oil/gas and water pipeline applications |
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Mobile Authentication Corp (MAC) Proprietary, next generation Two-Factor/Two-Channel Authentication, OTP (one-time password system) for financial transactions |
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LifeBot Patented telemedicine solutions for emergency and disaster management |
Rick participated in the FundingPost event: Phoenix Angel and Venture Conference
on Thursday, December 6, 2012 in AZ, Sponsored by The Chandler Innovation Center, SocialRadius, The Soho Loft
To list your Company on our website and make your profile available to Rick and 7,500+ other VCs and Angel Investors, Click Here.
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