Fund Managers

Bryan Simpson Jr. | Eric Hixon (Back Row)

Frank H. Foster | Debra P. Geiger | Dylan Hixon (Front Row)

Timo Hixon (Pictured Below)

Bryan Simpson, Jr.

A General Partner of the Gideon Hixon Fund since its inception in 1990, Bryan has also served as an advisor to the Hixon family’s earlier venture capital vehicles, Hixon Venture Fund and the Southwest Venture Funds.

Bryan is Chief Executive and Chairman of Medcom Services, Inc., a third-party administrator of employee benefits. For more than 35 years, he has also been involved in the development and management of real estate in northeast Florida, primarily marinas and restaurants. In 2006, Bryan became the Chairman of Hixon Properties Incorporated.

Bryan also serves on boards for various non-profit organizations and as an Advisory Director for Compass Bank. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Florida and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina. He is based in Jacksonville, Florida. Bryan currently serves on the board of Hixon Properties Incorporated.

Eric Hixon

A General Partner of the Gideon Hixon Fund and Eric is a co-Founder of MediaMaster, which focuses on storing, playing and organizing music on the internet. He has also served as a co-Managing Partner of the Gideon Hixon Fund. After building and growing his start-up, WebCal, which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998, Eric worked on the PIM products as part of the Yahoo Mail team. Previously, he worked at Torque Systems on systems integration for the pre-press industry.

Eric holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from New York University and a Bachelor’s degree from New York University. He is based in Palo Alto, California.

Frank H. 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 on the west coast. DFJ Frontier is a member of the DFJ Global Network which is a network of 16 venture funds across four continents with over $7 billion in assets and more than 500 active venture-backed portfolio companies. Prior to that, he was a General Partner of Allen & Buckeridge PTY LTD, a leading Australian venture capital firm with approximately $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 Next Generation Entertainment (acquired by NYX Gaming Group).

Frank also has extensive operational experience through his roles at Virtual Music Entertainment (sold to NAMCO), Contexture Systems, and Prophecy Development Corporation. Recently he was the lead investor and board observer for the St Archer Brewing Company, which was sold to MillerCoors in October, 2015.  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 helped guide 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 successful sale to Adaptec Inc. (NASDAQ:ADPT).

Frank currently serves as the Chairman of Boka Sciences, and Edufii, and is a director of Prolacta Biosciences, Buyology, Predixion Software, and Onsert Media. He also serves as a venture partner for Southern Cross Venture Partners, a $150m international venture capital fund focused on bringing Australia/NZ technology to the US. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Cancer Center of Santa Barbara and Board Member of the Pacer Foundation.

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. Frank is currently the Chairman of Hixon Properties Incorporated.

Debra P. Geiger

A General Partner of the Gideon Hixon Fund since 1992, Debra is also a Managing Partner of her family investment company and a Vice President of a private charitable foundation. Debra, a member of the California Bar Association has served as a volunteer at the Santa Barbara Legal Aid Foundation and provided consulting work for the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s Office. She is very proud of her work on an award-winning documentary film and her work with a local non-profit organization doing life-changing work in Africa.

Debra holds a Juris Doctor degree from the Santa Barbara College of Law and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado. She is based in Santa Barbara, California. Debra currently serves on the board of Hixon Properties Incorporated.

Dylan Hixon

Dylan oversees a pool of diversified public and private investments at Arden Road, including a portfolio of direct technology Venture Capital investments. He also serves on the Boards of several private companies in industries ranging from Software to Agriculture. Previously, Dylan worked for many years as an engineer, and he is the author of several technical papers and four US patents.

Dylan holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Yale University, and a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology. He is Trustee, chair of the Investment Committee, and member of the Executive Committee of Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, and Trustee and Treasurer of The Calhoun School in New York City. He also serves on the advisory boards of the Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Caltech’s Resnick Sustainability Institute, as well as the Board of the Regional Plan Association (RPA) of New York City, the oldest independant planning organization in the US. Dylan lives in New York City with his wife and two sons. Dylan currently serves on the board of Hixon Properties Incorporated.

Timo Hixon

George S. “Timo” Hixon has been a General Partner of the Gideon Hixon Fund since 2013. Timo is a private investor and conservationist based in San Antonio, Texas. He is also a Real Estate agent specializing in Farm, Ranch, and Recreational properties in Texas for Phyllis Browning Company. Timo holds a certificate in Advanced Ranch Management, overseeing personal family properties in Texas and Idaho.

Timo has significant experience working with not-for-profit organizations. He serves on the Board of the San Antonio Zoo, the Alamo Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the Tim and Karen Hixon Foundation and the Executive Committee of the Texas Wildlife Association Foundation. He is also a member of many other organizations that conserve wildlife and the habitats in which they live. Timo is a prior member of the Founder’s Council of the Texas Biomedical Research Institute.

Luc Woodard

Luc Woodard is the associate for the Gideon Hixon Fund based in Santa Barbara California. Luc joined in January 2019 after graduating from Georgetown University with a BSBA in finance and management. While at Georgetown, Luc worked as an assistant vice president of operations for the Georgetown University Alumni and Student Federal Credit Union. He also served as a vice president of internal relations for Global Platinum Securities an intercollegiate student investment fund  and an assistant captain of the club ice hockey team. Luc is enjoying his time in Santa Barbara where he enjoys playing golf and surfing in his free time.