Rick Gibson has had a 40-year career building businesses, founded/co-founded several successful technology companies and advised over 75 others. Rick reviewed 1000+ companies and mentored hundreds. 

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 and a limited partner in Solstice Capital II (the largest venture capital fund in AZ).

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. 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.