Idealab (formerly known as idealab!) is a

startup studio A startup studio, also known as a startup factory, or a startup foundry, or a venture studio, is a studio-like company that aims at building several companies in succession. This style of business building is referred to as "parallel entrepreneurshi ...

based in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...

, U.S.A.

History

Idealab was founded by

Bill T. Gross William T. Gross (born 1958) is an American businessman. Early life Gross grew up in Encino, California and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. Career He founded GNP ...

(not to be confused with the founder of

PIMCO PIMCO (Pacific Investment Management Company, LLC) is an American investment management firm focusing on active fixed income management worldwide. PIMCO manages investments in many asset classes such as fixed income, equities, commodities, asset ...

Bill H. Gross William Hunt "Bill" Gross (born April 13, 1944) is an American investor and Asset management, fund manager, best known for co-founding PIMCO, Pacific Investment Management Co. PIMCO is a global fixed income investment company. Gross ran their ...

) in March 1996. Prior to Idealab, Gross founded GNP Loudspeakers (now GNP Audio Video), an

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum *Digital audio, representation of sound ...

equipment manufacturer; GNP Development Inc., acquired by

Lotus Software Lotus Software (called Lotus Development Corporation before its acquisition by IBM) was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was "offloaded" to India's HCL Technologies in 2018. Lotus is most commonly known for the Lotus 1-2- ...

; and

Knowledge Adventure JumpStart Games, Inc., formerly Knowledge Adventure, Inc., is an American edutainment video game company based in Torrance, California. Founded in 1991, it owns the ''Neopets'' virtual pet website, and is itself owned by Chinese holding company ...

, an educational software company, later acquired by

Cendant Cendant Corporation was an American provider of business and consumer services, primarily within the real estate and travel industries. In 2005 and 2006, it broke up and spun off or sold its constituent businesses. Although it was based in New Yo ...

. Gross graduated with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

from the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

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 The domain name .tv is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Tuvalu. Except for reserved names like com.tv, net.tv, org.tv and others, any person may register second-level domains under .tv. The domain name is popular, and thus ...

domain Domain may refer to: Mathematics *Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined **Domain of definition of a partial function **Natural domain of a partial function **Domain of holomorphy of a function * Do ...

, giving the

island nation An island country, island state or an island nation is a country whose primary territory consists of one or more islands or parts of islands. Approximately 25% of all independent countries are island countries. Island countries are historically ...

Tuvalu Tuvalu ( or ; formerly known as the Ellice Islands) is an island country and microstate in the Polynesian subregion of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. Its islands are situated about midway between Hawaii and Australia. They lie east-northeast ...

enough money to join the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

in 2000. In December 2009, the company re-branded and introduced a new logo.

References

External links

* Companies based in Pasadena, California American companies established in 1996 Business incubators of the United States {{US-internet-company-stub