Rick Gibson

Summary

Rick Gibson has had a 45-year career building businesses, founded/co-founded several successful technology companies and advised over (75) others. Rick reviewed 1000+ companies and mentored hundreds. Rick is a Senior Investor at Sustainability Partners, an investor in large infrastructure retrofit and new-build projects for municipalities, universities, schools, hospitals, airports, corrections and other public entities. The Fund provides HVAC, LED lighting, windows, roofs, motors, pumps, elevators, vehicles, water and waste systems, all with zero customer capital, via a month-to-month utility service agreement. It is completely off-balance-sheet, not debt, and covers maintenance costs. Since 1999, Rick has served as Managing Director of HOTventures, a "mentor capital fund" for the Southwest U.S., that invests in/advises fast-growth companies, in domains from Ballistic Armor to Agriculture, including IT, Healthcare, Sustainability and Media. Rick’s been involved with several companies that’ve had liquidity events, as either co-founder or investor, and his portfolio has more foreseeable exits. Rick has invested almost one hundred million dollars. Since 1996, he’s been a key player in several “mentor-driven accelerators” including Idealab, the world’s leading tech incubator in the 1990’s. Rick has been an investor, advisor or board member in dozens of innovation companies. He was a limited partner in Solstice Capital II (the largest venture capital fund in AZ). He wrote for Inc.com for several years see: www.inc.com/author/rick-gibson Rick was an early stakeholder in Bill Gross' Idealab and founded one of its first companies, E-Ticket Inc, which merged with Nederlander Organization's RealTime Syndication Network. As Vice-Chairman, he secured online licenses for/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 created several well-known technology companies including Overture which was acquired by Yahoo for $1.6B. [See http://idealab.com]. Rick started GNP Development Corp with Bill Gross, 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 largest children's CD-ROM edutainment company in the world (almost $400 million in annual revenues), owned by Universal Studios, known for 'JumpStart' (20 million units sold) and ‘Blaster’ series.