Gary Rubens

Gary Rubens is a Seattle-area serial entrepreneur, angel investor, real estate developer, and philanthropist. He first ran a manufacturing business in the hospitality industry before founding an online lighting retailer (Lighting Universe / Architectural Details) in 1999 that grew into ATG Stores.com, a home-improvement and home-furnishings e-commerce company representing thousands of brand-name manufacturers. Lowe's acquired ATG Stores in December 2011, after which Rubens served as a Vice President at Lowe's. (ATGStores.com was later rebranded "The Mine.")

Following his exit, Rubens became one of the region's most active angel investors, founding Start It Labs, LLC in Bellevue in 2013 to back and mentor early-stage companies. He was widely reported to have made roughly 50 early-stage deals in his first 18–24 months of investing, and aggregators list him with 40+ angel investments overall. Separately, he acquired Kirkland-based i1 Biometrics and rebranded it Athlete Intelligence, a sports-technology company that makes sensored wearables and a web analytics platform to monitor head-impact exposure and improve athlete safety and performance; he is its President & CEO.

Rubens is also a major philanthropist. He and his wife Jennifer founded the Rubens Family Foundation (2013), which funds college scholarships for low-income and first-generation Washington students pursuing STEM, healthcare, and technical degrees, and supports no-cost foster-child adoptions. He sits on the board of the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship (WSOS), to which the couple have committed tens of millions of dollars (reported at $31M+ since 2015).

A notable personal detail: Rubens was accepted to WSU Pullman in 1981 but couldn't afford to attend at the time. Decades later he enrolled at WSU Global Campus and earned a bachelor's degree in Psychology in May 2022 — walking the stage alongside students his foundation had supported. He was inducted that year into WSU Global Campus's inaugural Society of Distinguished Alumni.

• Stage: Primarily seed and other early-stage rounds, investing personal/family capital through Start It Labs rather than an institutional fund.
• Volume: Known as a high-velocity angel — reported to have done ~50 deals in his first 18 months after the Lowe's exit; publicly tracked with 40+ investments.
• Geography: Strong home-market bias toward Seattle / Pacific Northwest startups.
• Sectors: Consumer and e-commerce (his own operating domain), marketing and social-media analytics SaaS, ad tech, and sports technology / athlete-safety hardware and data.
• Operator's lens: His edge is hands-on e-commerce, retail, and large-scale operations experience (ATG Stores → Lowe's), plus a mission orientation reflected in his sports-safety and education philanthropy.