Frank Foster

Frank has served as the Managing General Partner of the Gideon Hixon Fund since 2004 and a General Partner since 1990. He is also a Managing Director of DFJ Frontier, a Draper Fisher Jurvetson affiliated venture capital fund with $80M under management focused on seed and early stage technology companies. Previously, he was a General Partner of Allen & Buckeridge , an Australian venture capital firm with A$250 million under management. At Allen & Buckeridge he led investment efforts into Hitwise (acquired by Experian), eKit (acquired by Jersey Telecom), Wishlist (acquired by Qantas) and NextGen (acquired by NYX Gaming). Frank also has extensive operational experience through his roles at Virtual Music Entertainment (acquired by NAMCO), Contexture Systems and Prophecy Development Corp. Recently he was the lead investor and board observer for the St Archer Brewing Company which was recently sold to MillerCoors. Previously, he was the CEO and Executive Chairman of Prolacta Bioscience, leading the company through its successful turn around and funding. Before, he was an executive director for YellowPages.com where he led the company through its successful sale to SBC Communications (NYSE: SBC) and Bell South (NYSE: BLS). He was also a director of Cogent Data Technologies through its sale to Adaptec Inc (NASDAQ: ADPT). Frank serves as the Chairman of Hixon Properties, Boka Sciences, and Edufii and is a director of Prolacta Bioscience, Kate Farms, Skincential Sciences, Buyology, Predixion Software, and Onsert Media. He also is a venture partner for Southern Cross Venture Partners a $150M international venture capital fund. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Cancer Foundation of Santa Barbara. Frank received his MBA from The Harvard Business School and a BA cum laude from Harvard University. He regularly presents and teaches classes in entrepreneurship and family business at UCSB, Cal Poly, Stanford GSB and Portland State University.

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Rick Smith

With over two decades of private equity experience in Southern California, Rick founded the $750 million venture capital arm of SunAmerica in 1997, realizing 11 successful exits. As a partner at Palomar Ventures, he oversaw $500 million across three venture funds. A successful leader in the Southern California technology community, he received his B.S. in Finance from the University of Illinois and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.

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