Rick King , President

rking@preflightventures.com

Rick King (MBA, Harvard Business School; B.S., Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts) has over 23 years of experience in technology commercialization, corporate partnering, new ventures, coaching entrepreneurs, and is an international speaker and workshop leader. With an unparalleled passion and commitment to serve entrepreneurs, Rick has worked with over 150 technology start-ups and negotiated over 50 licensing, partnering, fundraising and M&A deals in software, Internet applications, electronics, chemical processing, hand held devices, communications, optical storage, factory automation, advanced materials, computer simulation, medical devices, food products, and biotechnology. Through these projects and workshops, PreFlight Ventures has helped start-ups raise over $500 Million and execute dozens of corporate deals.

Rick has started and successfully exited technology businesses of his own, and held management and business development positions at Hewlett Packard, Procter & Gamble, and small high-tech companies. He also worked in Europe as part of a long-term special assignment with HP, and has been active in many strategic alliance projects.

As a result of these experiences, Rick has led numerous business planning and sales efforts involving strategy, market assessment, technology valuation, and fundraising. Further, he has negotiated a variety of business arrangements (licensing, OEM, co-development, joint venture, venture capital, spin-off, distribution, and acquisition) encompassing traditional and novel deal structures. Along with a heartfelt passion to coach and help entrepreneurs he is active with business incubators, investment groups, and government-funded small business programs such as SBIR and NIST ATP.

Rick has authored two highly regarded guidebooks, "Making Money With Your Technology" that presents the five key success factors along with for commercializing new technology; and "The Art of Telling Your Story." The first guide came out of a year-long project evaluating high-tech small companies and it contains many examples and tips to improve the chances for new venture success (the #1 success factor being corporate partnering). He also developed an Internet-based management tool, called Innovation Insights, that helps corporations improve how they practice technology innovation. In addition, he works with large and small firms to provide technology strategy, R&D scouting, and commercial assessment of intellectual property for building strategic partnerships and licensing.

Rick is a guest speaker at a variety of conferences and corporate programs, and also conducts workshops and roundtables on innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology management. He conducts dynamic interactive workshops such as "The Art of Telling Your Story" which helps entrepreneurs present their business and themselves to investors and corporate partners. In addition to his guidebooks, some of Rick's work has appeared in a leading business school textbook (wrote case study, Hewlett Packard: Challenging the Entrepreneurial Culture), Fortune Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Business Week and other publications, as well as having written a special report for the Harvard Business Review on entrepreneurship.

Married with two daughters, Rick has coached youth sports for 16 years and has helped start and served on the board of several nonprofit organizations for youth-related ministries.

Testimonials and speaking engagements