Current Nick Matzorkis Companies: Global Agora & SUP ATX |
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Prolific entrepreneur and Internet pioneer Nick Matzorkis is best known as founder of the online people search, background check and employment screening industries. Three of the eighteen companies he has created and sold, US SEARCH, PeopleData and ZabaSearch, have defined and shaped the public record information industry on the Internet for nearly 20 years. Matzorkis states his crowning achievement to be the tens of millions of long lost friends and family members reunited by the companies he founded who had no other way of finding one another. His companies combined have sold for a market value of over one billion dollars. Two of his companies are traded on the NASDAQ and Shanghai Stock Exchange.
In addition to his widely recognized and at times controversial reputation as the leading innovator of the direct-to-consumer sale of public records, Mr. Matzorkis has founded an eclectic variety of additional businesses, including television and music production and distribution, web development, concert promotion, musical and theatrical artist management, and telecommunications technologies. Less known to the public Mr. Matzorkis serves so widely are his generous philanthropic contributions, and his creation of and participation as the guitarist in the band ClipBandits, regarded as the world's first web band. He founded GlobalAgora-China in 2001, a wireless technologies company which was the first U.S. based technology company to launch operations in the People's Republic of China. And that's not all: Mr. Matzorkis was executive producer of a song collection written and performed by Madonna released on his record label Harmony Music. Matzorkis also served as co-manager of Fleetwood Mac during this time period. In 1995, his company Web Sites Now! helped Hollywood studios, production and management companies learn about and get on the web when they had no idea what the fuss was all about. Web Sites Now! television and print ads famously ended with the quote by Matzorkis, "If you don't have a web site, you don't exist in the new global marketplace." A decade and a half later, and those foretelling words remain truer than ever. Mr. Matzorkis is currently focusing his attention introducing and popularizing the sport of stand up paddle surfing (SUP) in lakes & rIvers, moving the booming sport from the surfing coastlines of Hawaii and Malibu to the heartland of America and around the world. Up next, Matzorkis will be launching the new website, McCartney.com.
Launched in 1993, US SEARCH of Beverly Hills, CA was the first easy and affordable service made available to the public to locate long lost friends and family members. Mr. Matzorkis was a frequent guest on many television shows, reuniting family members and friends. Advertisements featuring Mr. Matzorkis ending with the voice-over, "Find Anyone, call Nick and Rob, 1-800-U.S. SEARCH.com", were a staple on television during much of the 1990's appearing daily on shows such as Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, CNBC, CNN Headline News, etc. The advertisements ran so frequently it prompted Jay Leno to make mention of them in his Tonight Show monologue. US SEARCH was the first company to access and sell public record information in high volume directly to the public. PeopleData was first to offer direct access to public records over the Internet, and ZabaSearch later became the first company to do the same for free.
US SEARCH was founded in 1993 by Nick Matzorkis as a Beverly Hills home based business and was featured in Entrepreneur Magazine. By 1999, US SEARCH grew to 400 employees and had a $160 million valued IPO on the NASDAQ exchange as the #1 people locator service in the world.
In 2002, First American Title (NYSE:FAF) acquired control of US SEARCH and merged subsidiaries with it. It is now traded as First Advantage (NASDAQ:FADV) with a market capitalization of over $1.3 billion. Even more notable than US SEARCH as a business success story was the positive impact it had on so many people's lives by reuniting millions of long lost friends and family members who otherwise would have had no other way of finding one another. US SEARCH was recently featured on 60 Minutes 16 years after it reunited two long lost friends as its first customers in 1994.
It was a childhood experience which 20 years later prompted Nicholas Matzorkis to appreciate the need for an affordable, accessible people locate service. While US SEARCH was the first to provide such a service at an affordable price in early 1994, it was not until Mr. Matzorkis went on to launch ZabaSearch in 2005 that finally made the service of searching public records to locate people free to the public. [More reunion videos]
ZabaSearch has received extensive media coverage (NPR - FOX News - Wired) and unfortunately has become a target of many privacy related activists which ZabaSearch often maintains misrepresent its capabilities and intentions. ZabaSearch points out that the information it displays is all available elsewhere on the web and is all public information. Matzorkis states, "ZabaSearch represents an inevitable evolutionary phase in Internet technologies and the democratization of public information."
US SEARCH was one of six companies Mr. Matzorkis founded and operated out of Beverly Hills during the 1990's under the banner, "InterAct Entertainment Group". The other InterAct companies were in the business of web development, television and music production and distribution, musical and theatrical artist management, and telecommunications technologies. InterAct Entertainment Group was perhaps the first to successfully converge entertainment, telecommunications and fledgling Internet related technologies into working successful business models in the heart of the entertainment industry in the early 1990's.
InterAct Entertainment's "Harmony Music and Video" specialized in production and distribution of music and video titles. In addition to his role as chairman of InterAct, Nick Matzorkis would frequently play the role of producer in many of its projects. Matzorkis was executive producer of "Pre-Madonna", a collection of songs written and performed by Madonna that to this day remains the only Madonna CD ever released that is not owned and controlled by Warner Bros and Madonna. Matzorkis was also executive producer of the critically acclaimed "Music, Peace and Harmony" CD by artist Viveka Davis. Harmony also released a successful five volume video series starring #1 New York Times best-selling author Sylvia Browne and produced a series of specialized videos including, "Beauty Pageant", written by a former Miss America and hosted by a former Miss USA.
‘US BELL’, ‘Web Sites Now!’, and ‘InterAct on the Internet’ were all founded by Matzorkis in the early 1990’s which provided various web development and telecommunications services to outside companies and consumers. Additionally, they provided technology backbone for their sister companies, ‘Harmony Music and Video’, InterAct Talent Management, Kushner-Locke and US SEARCH. Prior to the InterAct Entertainment Group of companies, Nick Matzorkis and Ziggy cartoon creator Tom Wilson launched Ziggy & Friends Productions in 1990. They developed Ziggy print, animation, and character licensing projects. Nick Matzorkis and Tom Wilson were Executive Producers with celebrities such as Academy Award winners Jon Voight and Louis Gossett Jr. and others such as David Crosby, Olivia Newton John, and Stevie Wonder to develop entertainment projects intended to draw attention to environmental concerns of our time.
Before Ziggy & Friends, Matzorkis opened and operated the ‘Cleveland Agora Theater and Ballroom’ concert venue in 1986 with legendary promoter Hank LoConti. Matzorkis produced and promoted hundreds of concerts in the Agora 1800 seat theater as well as larger festival shows in outside venues. He also started a successful management company during this time which later turned into InterAct Talent Management of Beverly Hills, expanding beyond musical talent to theatrical talent and production.
During his four years operating the Cleveland Agora Theater, Matzorkis promoted hundreds of shows with such legendary rock artists as Neil Young (Live at the Cleveland Agora), Keith Richards, Ron Wood, Bob Dylan and David Crosby. Band and tour management clients have included Humble Pie, Dave Mason and Fleetwood Mac. Theatrical talent clients later included Academy Award winner Maximilian Schell, Viveka Davis (Seinfeld, Judds NBC Mini-series, Edtv w/Mathew McConaughy, Message in a Bottle w/Kevin Costner, Curley Sue w/Jim Belushi, Ricochet w/Denzel Washington, Castaway w/Tom Hanks, Man Trouble w/Jack Nicholson), Kim Wayans (In Living Color), Diana Scarwid (Mommy Dearest and Emmy nomination for her role as Bess Truman in Truman) etc. InterAct Management had clients in two consecutive Cannes Film Festivals in 1995 and 1996 and an Emmy nomination in 1996.
Nicholas Matzorkis and Nicholas Rockefeller both resigned from US SEARCH in 2001 and went on to launch GlobalAgora-China in partnership with Chinese government controlled Wuhan Department Store Group, publicly traded on the Shanghai Exchange. GlobalAgora is believed to be the first U.S. based technology company to launch operations in the People's Republic of China and the first to enable wireless shopping in mainland China. An international syndicate of investors with interests in Chinese retail operations purchased GlobalAgora-China operations, proprietary wireless software technology and hardware in 2002.
Nick Matzorkis' hobbies include dabbling in new technologies. He created and played guitar for the ClipBandits, generally regarded as the "worlds first web band". They performed on the Tyra Banks Show.
Nick plans on continuing to develop cutting edge uses of technologies, oversee his ventures and interests, and manage pet philanthropic projects, while spending time between primary residence in Austin, TX, Malibu, CA Aspen, CO, and homeland of all four of his grandparents the Greek Islands.
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Nick Matzorkis Videos SUP ATX "Stand Up Paddle Journey" Trailer for FOXsports.com. Jay Leno Jokes About Frequent TV Ads for Matzorkis' US SEARCH. Father and Son Reunion Produced by Nick Matzorkis. Nick Matzorkis on CNBC Discussing Launch of US SEARCH. Three Reunions Produced by Nick Matzorkis for US SEARCH Show. Madonna CD MTV Ad for Matzorkis' Harmony Music Record Label. "Save the Earth" Excerpts Produced by Nick Matzorkis 1992. Nick Matzorkis on Jerry Springer 1995. Nick Matzorkis, Jon Voight and Louis Gossett Jr, Co-Executive Producers, Save The Earth, 1992. InterAct Entertainment Group Management Client. InterAct Entertainment Group Management Client. Nick Matzorkis & Nicholas Rockefeller, TV News China Announcing Launch of Matzorkis' GlobalAgora. ClipBandits Video. World's First Web Band. Nick Matzorkis Producer and Guitarist. ClipBandits perform on Tyra Banks Show. Nick Matzorkis on Guitar. |
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