The Grid TO | Urban Orca's platonic ideal

_Tue Sep 20, 2011_Media

Urban Orca’s platonic ideal

New, Toronto-based social-media start-up wants to connect you with new friends—but for offline group activities, and with no sex attached.

BY: Jacob Rutka

With phrases like “Silicon Valley North” being used to describe Toronto, it’s no surprise that the city has a knack for spawning top tech-savvy start-up talent. Home to mobile development giants like Xtreme Labs, Polar Mobile and Five Mobile (who all create apps for Apple, Blackberry, Android and Windows), the city has also provided a welcoming environment for companies like the Google-acquired desktop organizer BumpTop and IBM-purchased Clarity Systems.

Now, Hesam Hosseini and Andrew Sider—two young, Toronto-based entrepreneurs—are looking to expand our conception of social media and the function it plays in our daily lives with a new downtown-based start-up called Urban Orca. Previously launched in Manhattan earlier in the summer and available in Toronto as of Sept. 15, Urban Orca’s concept is quite simple: it’s a social media site that allows like-minded people seeking social relationships to form friendships in real life. After users set up a simple profile stating their interests, the site connects similar, fun-seeking people by using a social event—like a jogging club or dinner to facilitate a Chinese-English language exchange—to get people together offline.

And though there may be some skeptics who discount Urban Orca as n

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