In January 2025, Derek co-founded a stealth startup and quietly secured $10 million in pre-seed funding with his co-founder and CTO, Matthew Mengerink, former CTO of X.commerce at eBay and PayPal, Vice President of Engineering at YouTube-Google, and Vice President of Infrastructure at Uber.They’ve invented a technology no one saw coming.He is also founder of Wildfire Venture Partner, a distinguished private family office with a primary focus on investments in spatial computing, B2B (SaaS), robotics (RaaS), and artificial intelligence companies.Born and raised in Silicon Valley into a family of tech startup entrepreneurs, Derek has always had an entrepreneurial spirit and a keen eye for business. Despite battling dyslexia and dropping out of high school his senior year, Derek helped launch Ezekiel Clothing, out of his house at age 19, and nearly 30 years later Ezekiel is a top surf and skate brand sold at top-tier retailers around the world. Derek continued to excel in manufacturing as he went on to co-found a snowboard distribution and manufacturing company at age 23, which was acquired by a public company two years later. In the mid-nineties, he was part of the founding team of Dita Eyewear, a boutique fashion optical company that has since grown into a leading $250M optical brand and OEM manufacturer.In 1996 and at the age 26, Derek co-founded TechStore one of the first online computer retailers. In 1999 Derek co-founded eMarketplace a publicly held Silicon Valley internet incubator, which acquired TechStore giving a combined value of $189M. He continued to prove his business prowess when he founded BuyNow – a subsidiary of Buy.com – which was later acquired by one of the top three internet companies in the world, Rakuten, for $250 million in 2010. Up until 2014, Derek was also Founder and CEO of VAULT, a Rakuten-company and the first online fashion marketplace. In 2017, at the age 47 Derek sought to disrupt traditional distribution and enrolled at Harvard Business School with professor Clayton Christensen on disruptive innovation & Scaling Ventures with Professor Shikhar Ghosh & Professor Jeffrey Rayport, which lead Derek to write his final thesis on disrupting B2B. From there he co-founded HUBX in 2018 which exceeded all expectations - crushing $200M within its first year, processing billions in GMV since inception and has amassed customers in 133 countries.Derek thrives on the adrenaline of playing competitive polo, investing in startups, and mentoring founders.