April 3, 2010 -- Idealab, an online business incubator, sold the domain name Top10.com for $200,000 in cash and a 7% equity share in the UK’s new Top10.com Media Ltd. Founder of IdeaLab and the person behind the sale, Bill Gross, will join the advisory board of the company.

Top10.com was purchased by the same team involved in Top 10 Broadband and Top 10 Mobile, both price comparison sites targeting the UK market. Prior to the rebranding under the Top10.com umbrella, the company’s two sites attracted 1.5 million UK users a month. The company, founded in 2006, also owns Top10.co.uk.

Bill Gross, the founder of IdeaLab, and the success behind many technology companies including Picasa and GoTo.com, will sit on the advisory board at Top10.com. The cash and equity deal is valued at over $1 million – one of the most expensive domain purchases by a UK company.

Top10.com is positioning itself to be the UK’s premier price comparison engine. “The Top 10 team has already been highly successful and consistently profitable and there is amazing potential for future growth. We think that the price comparison sector is ripe for change, and in need of innovation”, said Gross.

Domain sales like this with a solid idea and an already active marketplace are what fuels the domain industry and gets domain investors going. Deals such these are win-win for both parties – Top10.com not only purchased a domain, they purchased the branding, marketing and internet restructuring expertise of IdeaLab and Bill Gross. On their part, Bill Gross along with his company gets paid to do what they do best – incubate ideas and bring them to market. All of us who do this for a living, spending many hours taking an idea from inception to market feel good seeing this kind of thing happen. Good job.