Idealab is a business incubator

Business incubator

Business incubators are programs designed to accelerate the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, developed and orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the incubator and through its network of contacts...

 based in Pasadena, California

Pasadena, California

Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...

.

History

Idealab was founded by Bill Gross (not the same Bill Gross

Bill Gross

Bill Gross is an American businessman. Born in 1958, he grew up in Encino, California. He founded GNP Loudspeakers , an audio equipment manufacturer; GNP Development Inc., acquired by Lotus Software; and Knowledge Adventure, an educational software company, later acquired by Cendant...

 of PIMCO) in March 1996. Prior to Idealab, he founded GNP Loudspeakers (now GNP Audio Video), an audio

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 equipment manufacturer; GNP Development Inc., acquired by Lotus Software

Lotus Software

Lotus Software is a software company with headquarters in Westford, Massachusetts...

; and Knowledge Adventure, an educational software company, later acquired by Cendant

Cendant

Cendant Corporation was a New York-based provider of business and consumer services, primarily within the real estate and travel industries. In 2005 and 2006, Cendant broke up and spun off or sold its constituent businesses...

. Gross graduated with a Bachelor of Science

Bachelor of Science

A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...

 in Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical engineering

Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...

 from the California Institute of Technology

California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...

 and Idealab has historically hired many alumni; Gross now sits on the Institute's board of trustees.

The company leased the right to use the .tv

.tv

The domain name .tv is the Internet country code top-level domain for the islands of Tuvalu.Except for reserved names like com.tv, net.tv, org.tv and others, any person may register second-level domains in tv...

 domain

Domain name system

The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...

, giving the island nation

Island nation

An island country is a state whose primary territory consists of one or more islands or parts of islands. As of 2011, 47 of the 193 UN member states are island countries.-Politics:...

 of Tuvalu

Tuvalu

Tuvalu , formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. It comprises four reef islands and five true atolls...

 enough money to join the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 in 2000.

In December 2009 the company re-branded and introduced a new logo.

Noteworthy companies

Idealab has created, invested in, and spun off a variety of companies including:

• AirWave Wireless
  AirWave Wireless
  Airwave Wireless, Inc. was founded in 2000 as an Wi-Fi hotspot provider, with venture capital from Idealab. In the wake of the dot-com bust they adopted a new business model, selling wireless network management software: the AirWave Management Platform, or AMP...
  
  , vendor of wireless network management software acquired by Aruba Networks
  Aruba Networks
  Aruba Networks, Inc. is a networking vendor selling enterprise wireless LAN and edge access networking equipment. The company has over 500 employees and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA...
  
   in 2008
• Answers.com
  Answers.com
  Answers.com is an Internet-based knowledge exchange, which includes WikiAnswers, ReferenceAnswers, VideoAnswers, and five international language Q&A communities. The Answers.com domain name was purchased by Bill Gross and Henrik Jones at idealab in 1996. The domain name was acquired by NetShepard...
  
  
• Aptera Motors, electric car
  Electric car
  An electric car is an automobile which is propelled by electric motor, using electrical energy stored in batteries or another energy storage device. Electric cars were popular in the late-19th century and early 20th century, until advances in internal combustion engine technology and mass...
  
   manufacturer
• Blastoff.com
  BlastOff! Corporation
  Blastoff! Corporation was a small aerospace company in Pasadena, California that operated from 1999 to early 2001. Blastoff! was one of dozens of Idealab's incubator companies, created to capitalize on the public interest in space travel and exploration....
  
  
• CarsDirect
  CarsDirect
  CarsDirect is an online automotive research portal and car buying service based in El Segundo, California that allows consumers to research, price, purchase, insure and finance a vehicle online. The company also provides lead generation and referral services to auto dealers.-History:CarsDirect was...
  
  
• Citysearch
  Citysearch
  Citysearch is an online city guide that provides information about businesses in the categories of dining, entertainment, retail, travel, and professional services in cities throughout the United States. Visitors to each of Citysearch's local city guides will find contact information, maps, driving...
  
  , acquired by IAC/InterActiveCorp
  IAC/InterActiveCorp
  InterActiveCorp is an American internet company with over 50 brands across 40 countries headquartered in New York City...
  
   .
• Commission Junction
  Commission Junction
  Commission Junction is an online advertising company owned by ValueClick and operating in the affiliate marketing industry. The company is the largest affiliate network in North America and operates worldwide. Among the top 500 retailers using 3rd party affiliate marketing software, 62% are powered...
  
  
• Compete, Inc.
  Compete.com
  Compete.com is a web traffic analysis service of Compete, Inc. which operates in the United States and publishes the approximate number of global visitors to the top 1,000,000 web sites in the world...
  
  
• eSolar
  ESolar
  eSolar was founded by the Pasadena-based business incubator Idealab in 2007 as a developer of concentrating solar power plant technology....
  
  
• eToys.com
  EToys.com
  eToys.com is a retail website that sells toys via the Internet. It was established by a startup company of the same name during the dotcom boom, but the company went bankrupt towards the end of the boom, after which the site went through a number of changes of ownership, and was acquired by Toys...
  
  
• eVoice
  EVoice
  eVoice is a telecommunications service owned by j2 Global Communications, Inc. that manages incoming and outgoing calls using a virtual phone number. The service was founded in 2000 and re-launched in March 2010 with new features, functionality and pricing targeting entrepreneurs and small...
  
  
• GoTo.com, later renamed Overture Services, now Yahoo! Search Marketing.
• Insider Pages
  Insider Pages
  Insider Pages is an online "local search" service operated by IAC/InterActiveCorp.Before its acquisition by IAC the company was based in Redwood Shores, California, and had over 600,000 reviews of local merchants around the country. Insider Pages was founded by Stuart MacFarlane in 2004...
  
  , city guides with customer reviews of restaurants, beauty salons, dentists and other local services.
• Internet Brands
  Internet Brands
  Internet Brands is a new media company based in El Segundo, California that operates online media, community, and e-commerce sites in vertical markets. The company also develops and licenses internet software and social media applications....
  
  
• Intranets.com
• NetZero
  NetZero
  NetZero is an Internet service provider based in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California. It is a subsidiary of United Online, owner of Juno Online Services and BlueLight Internet Services. The current chairman, president, and CEO of United Online is Mark Goldston.- History :NetZero launched in...
  
   .
• New.net
  New.net
  New.net is an alternate DNS root system which is enabled via NewDotNet, a DNS hijacker application, which is usually bundled with legitimate software...
  
  
• Picasa
  Picasa
  Picasa is an image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, plus an integrated photo-sharing website, originally created by Idealab in 2002 and owned by Google since 2004. "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase mi casa for "my...
  
  , acquired by Google
  Google
  Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
  
  
• PetSmart.com
  PetSmart
  PetSmart, Inc. is a retail chain doing business in the United States and Canada engaged in the sale of specialty pet supplies and services such as grooming and dog training, PetSmart PetsHotel dog and cat boarding facilities and Doggie Day Care.- History :...
  
  
• Scout electromedia
  Scout electromedia
  Scout Electromedia was a late 1990s wireless consumer product company based in San Francisco.The company created the modo handheld wireless device which delivered up-to-the-minute entertainment information to urban youth in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, although the demise of the...
  
   (venture investment, 2000)
• Swap.com
• Tickets.com
  Tickets.com
  Tickets.com is a Costa Mesa, California-based global ticketing company. The company is owned by Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the interactive media and Internet division of Major League Baseball, and currently handles sales of tickets for 15 major league teams...
  
   (acquired by Major League Baseball Advanced Media)
• Ubermedia.com