E3: On today's episode we hear from Rick Marini. Rick is a serial entrepreneur with 25 years of operating and investing experience in the technology space. He founded and successfully sold 3 companies (Tickle, BranchOut and Talk.co). He is an active angel investor in 50 tech start-ups including 17 unicorns (including Snapchat, Reddit, Opendoor, and AngelList). In 2018, Rick was named a "Top 50 Angel Investor" by Forbes.
Rick is also the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Catapult Capital - a private equity firm that focuses on transactions in the Internet, advertising, media, consumer and broader technology sectors. Full buyouts include Grindr and JibJab. Rick currently serves as the COO of Grindr and on the Board of Directors for JibJab.
Rick was the Founder & CEO of BranchOut, the largest professional network leveraging the social graph with more than 800 million professional profiles. BranchOut raised $49 million in funding from Accel, Redpoint, Mayfield, Norwest and Floodgate. In 2014, BranchOut was acquired by a publicly-traded recruiting company.
Rick was Founder & CEO of Talk.co, an enterprise messaging app. In 2014, Talk.co was acquired by Hearst Corporation. Rick ran the Digital Innovation Group at Hearst from 2014-2016.
In 1999, Rick co-founded Tickle.com, one of the largest social media sites on the Internet. In 2002, Tickle won the “Rising Star” Webby Award as the fastest growing site on the Web. Tickle grew to more than 200 million registered users and was a top 20 Internet site. In 2004, Monster Worldwide acquired Tickle for $100 million.
Beyond Rick's depth of knowledge and experience, he is an amazing human being - he generously gives his time to coach and mentor early-stage companies and is a huge advocate for new founders looking for advice, support, and investment in Silicon Valley.
The Wise Exit is an Exitwise Production. Are you a business owner looking to sell your business faster, for more, and with less complexity? Learn how Exitwise's founder-led team helps you maximize your exit value and simplifies the M&A process: https://exitwise.com/
