About Rick DeVos

Rick DeVos is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wakestream Ventures.

Driven by curiosity and a desire to empower and connect others, Rick founded Wakestream Ventures (WV) to help launch innovative startup companies through early-stage investments. As CEO, he's led WV in making over 80 investments to date.

Rick has long been energized by fresh ideas and platforms that lead individuals and organizations to engage and create, as his entrepreneurial history and WV's own story show.

WV was originally part of Start Garden (SG), an entity focused on growing West Michigan's startup economy. SG provides "ground floor" funding for people with ideas through various competitions while seeking to foster a connected startup community. Rick and the DeVos family remain among its largest financial supporters.

Rick also created ArtPrize in 2009, a social experiment designed to see if artists and the public could engage each other in a new way. The scale and energy of the event created global recognition and launched it into debates all over the art world and beyond, empowering the masses to have a perspective and a vehicle for expressing their thinking.

Married to Melissa DeVos, Rick is also a competitive sailor, licensed fixed-wing and helicopter pilot, and frequent commentator on Twitter (@RickDeVos).