Rick King Background

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Rick King (MBA, Harvard Business School; B.S. Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts) has 31 years of experience working with new ventures, investors, corporate partnering, commercialization and intellectual property (IP); and is a passionate coach/advisor and international speaker & workshop leader.

Rick has worked with over 180 technology start-ups; helped raise $600 Million; and negotiated over 75 licensing, partnering, funding and M&A deals in medical devices, clean technology, biopharma, software, Internet, electronics, chemicals, mobile devices, communications, factory automation, advanced materials, computer simulation and food products. (see Deal Examples)

Substantial experience with angel and VC investing, along with private equity and investment banking.

Rick has deep experience, rigorous skills and a broad contact network in all aspects of commercialization, partnering & licensing: Product development; customer fit; accelerating products to market; channel strategy & market access; negotiating; deal structure/term sheets/contracting; financial; team building; capital investment; legal; milestone projects; manufacturing; intellectual property.

PreFlight Ventures targets projects that help people (impact the world) and that can generate solid financial payback, e.g., Medtech/healthcare, Green/clean tech, Education, Safety. Help physicians license & commercialize products; assist investors with deal flow, due diligence & exit/payback; and develop alliances with large companies.

With 4 successful start-ups of his own, Rick has exited technology businesses, and held technical, marketing and business development positions at Hewlett Packard, Procter & Gamble and small high-tech companies. In addition to many global projects, he worked in Europe as part of a long-term special assignment with HP, and has been active in over 100 strategic alliance projects.

He has negotiated a variety of business arrangements (angel/venture capital, licensing, co-development, joint venture, OEM, spin-off, distribution and acquisition) encompassing traditional and novel deal structures. Rick has led scores of business planning, sales & investment efforts involving due diligence, strategy, market assessment, valuation and fundraising. He also teams with angels & investment groups, government tech programs, medtech consultants and business incubators.

As part of his focus on the #1 success factor for tech ventures (Corporate Partners), he also works with large and small firms to provide technology strategy, R&D scouting and commercial assessment to build strategic partnerships and make investment decisions.

Rick has authored two well regarded guidebooks, “Making Money With Your Technology” for commercializing new technology; and “The Art of Telling Your Story.” The first came out of a year-long analysis & interviews of high-tech companies; examples and tips to improve innovation/venture success.

Developed an Internet-based management tool called Innovation Insights, to improve how corporations practice technology innovation and how to team with ventures & entrepreneurs. Also created & built an online venture/technology database system called Discovery.

A guest speaker at conferences, incubators/angel groups and corporate programs, Rick conducts workshops and panels on technology management, innovation and entrepreneurship. His dynamic interactive workshops include “The Art of Telling Your Story” which helps people present their ideas, their business and themselves to investors and corporate partners.

His work has appeared in leading business school textbooks, Fortune Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Business Week and others. Research/wrote HBS case study – Hewlett Packard: Challenging the Entrepreneurial Culture. Also did special study/report for the Harvard Business Review on small companies.

Married with two grown daughters (working in healthcare with passion to help people); wife is principal of largest public high school in NC. Rick coached youth sports for 20 years. Helped start and a board member of several nonprofit organizations for youth-related ministries; one serves disadvantaged kids, teachers and schools with Character Education & Physical Fitness (50,000 kids & counting).