When you've been an online version of Cilla Black for the past seven years, you might think it hard to leave matchmaking behind. Simon Prockter, the founder and CEO of Adventura.com probably won't thank us for the comparison, but his reputation in the world of dating precedes him.

Through his first business, SpeedDater, which he founded with a former publishing colleague was a hugely successful singles database with just under half a million customers. When the company branched out into travel as a value-add with Speed Breaks Ltd, he and co-founder Ben Tisdall (now departed), brought new impetus to holiday romances and a more sophisticated take on Club 18-30s holidays.

But with the active holidays now taking precedence, it called for a change in name and image. Share the adventure, he promises. And while romance will inevitably happen between groups of young single people, it's no longer the be-all-and-end-all foisted on those more interested in great skiing, diving, sailing or other sporty breaks. Hence the new name: Adventura.com

And the re-brand has been surprisingly smooth. Prockter was already the owner of the domain, but some internal resistance and a heritage of sorts had meant the business could never quite take the leap. The problem was that when the company exhibited at travel shows, the word 'speed' in the name had all the usual connotations.

He's clearly still getting used to the change, slipping the word 'singles' into conversation before adding that the term is "so against brand guidelines now". Badges, scorecards and dating paraphenalia are banished. Itineraries are less rigid. "People didn't want it to be forced," he says. Prockter acknowledges though that some will still stump up the cash in pursuit of meeting someone or sex, but for many it's just about fun.

The switch took a while to happen. "We flogged all the dating assets and now run with travel." The dating business was sold to EasyDate Ltd in a cash deal, plus earn-out, in March 2008 following an approach by Max Polyakov two years earlier. The exit price is undisclosed - indeed only three people on Prockter's side of the deal know it. Early rival Udate.com sold for £93m in 2002 and had a smaller database, but it's fair to say valuations had fallen significantly by 2008.

Nevertheless, Prockter appears to be doing well. He's also got serial entrepreneur Paul Birch, one of the originators of Bebo.com alongside brother Michael and his wife Xochi, on board. Birch bought out Tisdall in October 2005. And Adventura has a sister site, Pureescapes.com which focuses on group retreats to lavish properties in Europe. It's a site he founded with tech start-up specialist Rob Loch last year and is growing steadily, with friends in his entrepreneurial network using the service to forge closer relationships and share expertise from respective areas.

Adventura turned over £2.2m to September 2008 and Prockter expects to see an improvement this year, with gross profitability already looking to be higher. He's also set to launch a third site, Tripflip, a strategy game where participants compete for a holiday. The site will combine elements of social networking and be delivered as a Facebook application. "The travel industry isn't innovative enough," he rails. "Some of the big five travel players have only launched booking engines in the last few years. Anyone not writing something for Facebook is missing a trick."

Online identity company Garlik is a mere baby in the world of business, but promises to be a behemoth. “Garlik is helping consumers look after their personal information in the digital world,” says founder and former Egg chief information officer Tom Ilube.

It was this concept that secured the services of his former boss Mike Harris (the creator of two billion pound businesses First Direct and Egg) and Sir Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the World Wide Web) on the basis that his business would be another disruptive market changer.

Berners-Lee and Harris bought into the concept, as did a small coterie of venture capital investors. No wonder. If identity fraud can cost UK victims at least £1.7bn per year, then the player that emerges to salve or solve this problem will be in hot demand.

That’s where Garlik expects to be – and all arrows point to it achieving its aims. Ilube raised £9m from the likes of Doughty Hanson & Co and 3i - £3m in Series A in early 2006 and a second tranche of £6m in April 2007.

Its flagship product, DataPatrol, which uses semantic web technology to enable users to track their personal identity on the web, is hitting the right notes. To explain what the semantic web is it’s best to imagine the internet we use now as a series of documents. The semantic web is a web of data, which has disastrous implications for many. That’s why major distribution partners have been quick to show an interest. Deals to offer the product to Jobsite.co.uk users and Card Payment Protection, which itself has 10 million customers, have helped to seal Garlik’s reputation as a major one to watch.

So how did Ilube get here? Based on a hunch that he could do something special in the space he carried out the kind of market research that every start-up entrepreneur could learn from. He spoke to consumers to see where the concerns lay and to technologists at Southampton University (where Berners-Lee operates from) and other universities.

But perhaps most importantly, he commissioned criminologists to speak to online fraudsters, asking what they do with personal information, where they get it and how they steal people’s identities. He even got a price out of them, determining how much an individual’s online identity is worth to them. The answer? £85,000 – using store cards, mobile contracts, personal loans, credit cards, passport applications and marriage and immigration options. Scary stuff!

The upshot is that while we may all sit cowering by our PCs afraid to input any more data, Garlik could be that knight in shining armour. “Garlik is setting out to be a billion pound company,” confirms Ilube. Much will depend on Garlik seizing the opportunity that the semantic web presents and he says it’s a bone of contention as the UK leads the way, but isn’t moving as fast as it should to create the web’s next big things. “We’re doing stuff here, not just us but other companies as well, that nobody else is doing. We could seize that. We could build companies based on the next generation of the web that would be unrivalled.

“In five years’ time Garlik will be a company spread across the semantic web. The issue of people’s personal identity will be significantly up the agenda and Garlik will be the company people will turn to to help them look after their personal information in every corner of the web in every corner of the world.” Watch this space.

23/4/09 UPDATE: Garlik has secured a further £1.6m in a Series C fundraising backed by venture capital investors Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures and 3i, as well as management and existing angel backers. Since 2006 revenue has grown by 300% per annum.