The reality television production company behind Fox Broadcasting’s “Trading Spouses” and “Temptation Island” is planning to bring L.A.-based TeamDating.com, an online dating Web site, to the small screen.
The site, which has 20,000 members mostly in New York and Los Angeles, hooks up one small group of friends with another online, so that the first date turns out more like a casual outing rather than a blind date.
“You meet people online the way you do offline with friends,” said TeamDating.com’s president Ray Doustdar.
Based on this concept, Rocket Science Laboratories LLC will create a reality show that looks at the dynamics of groups of single friends when they go out: Does a leader emerge? Will friends sacrifice for the good of the team? What happens when three girlfriends vie for the same guy?
Doustdar said he and co-founder Kipp Gillian launched the Web site last year envisioning it as a reality TV show. It’s a cross between a social networking concept like MySpace.com and dating sites like eHarmony.com.
“I don’t want people to spend eight hours a day on our site. I want people to utilize it to meet people,” he said. “On the other hand, I don’t want it to be like eHarmony, where the expectations are so high that if it doesn’t deliver the person’s soul mate, the site is viewed as a failure.”
TeamDating.com and Rocket Science will take the concept to television networks across the country beginning next month
Gorilla Investment
Gorilla Nation Media, online advertising firm for companies like Playboy Enterprises and the Huffington Post, has received $50 million in equity investment from Great Hill Partners.
The L.A.-based company plans to use the money to acquire marketing services businesses and expand its presence internationally, according to Brian Fitzgerald, co-founder and president of Gorilla Nation.
Fitzgerald said the 6-year-old company had a handful of opportunities to raise money or sell the business in the past. “We opted to grow organically, feeling that we weren’t ready for an infusion of cash and the pressure to execute on that cash. You can only grow a business so fast,” he said.
Over the past 18 months, the company has experienced an influx of online brand marketing dollars, as many corporations have finally resigned themselves to the fact that the Web is here to stay and it works, he said. The company’s revenue, for example, has doubled to $50 million this year compared to 2006.
Michael Kumin, partner at Great Hill, a Boston-based private equity firm, said the company chose to invest in Gorilla Nation over about 50 other companies in the Internet marketing services category.
Great Hill was convinced by Gorilla Nation’s profitability, a breadth of product offerings, an entrepreneurial management team and solid reputation in marketing, he said.
Changes at the Top
Joel Barry, chairman and chief executive of Electronic Clearing House Inc. will retire on July 2.
Charles Harris, the company’s president and chief operating officer, will become chief executive and board member Richard Field has been appointed non-executive chairman.
Barry has been with the Camarillo-based processor of credit card and check payment since 1986 and served as chief executive since 1990.
Harris joined Electronics Clearing House in 2005 as president and chief operating officer. Field became director of the company in 2004.
Staff reporter Booyeon Lee can be reached at
[email protected]
or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 230.
