Primary Job Title COO & Founder Primary Organization 
Nubo Consulting Ltd
Location London, England, United Kingdom Regions Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) Gender Male
Website www.davidrichards.me.uk LinkedIn View on LinkedIn X (Twitter) View on X
David Richards is a life-long technology entrepreneur with over 30-years international experience in various capacities most notably in high-profile start-ups.
David started his career in Wireless R&D at Marconi before moving onto Racal where he worked in the division that span-out as Vodafone. At Racal he was project manager of a £1Bn
security contract and gained Chartered Engineer status at the youngest age allowed.
David moved into Executive BDM roles at famous Silicon Valley firms Daisy Systems, Sun Microsystems, and subsequently Paul Allen’s Seattle-based Asymetrix. David was a Product Manager at Daisy, a company as well known in its day as Twitter is today. Daisy exited through a trade sale to the US software company Intergraph in 1990. At Sun David was Solaris Product Manager and then Networks Division Manager where he was part of the team that launched the success that is Java. The number of Java licences issued worldwide is now counted in billions and continues to grow under new owners Oracle. At Asymetrix David was CEO in its biggest market, Europe. Asymetrix was Paul Allen's first venture post-Microsoft. Asymetrix exited via an IPO on NASDAQ in 1998.
In recent years David has used his Silicon Valley experience to help accelerate and finance SMEs. He was previously a mentor to the DTI’s Software Business Network (SBN) and then an Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Mentor to the SETsquared incubation partnership where he latterly focussed on University spin-outs. SETsquared is Europe's leading university technology incubator and accelerator (UBI survey 2013). He is currently a Rockstar mentor and a Tech London Advocate.
Since 1997 David has, on average, each year directly helped his mentees raise over £1m of his speciality of Seed and Equity Gap funding.
David has held a number of Non-Executive Director roles in tech startups and SMEs, is a successful business angel, and has VC contacts worldwide. The vast majority of his companies are award winning and have either made successful exits or continue to trade as independent private companies. As an Angel he regularly beats the 2 x ROI benchmark. His VC contacts include the biggest and best in Silicon Valley, Boston, London, Paris and Munich. One of his most recent successes was to found a successful startup in France, acting as CEO.
His key sectors are electronics, software and cleantech.
