In 2004, Wales and then-fellow member of the WMF Board of Trustees Angela Beesley founded the for-profit company Wikia. Wikia is a wiki farm—a collection of individual wikis on different subjects, all hosted on the same website. It hosts some of the largest wikis outside Wikipedia, including Memory Alpha (devoted to "Star Trek") and Wookieepedia ("Star Wars"). Another service offered by Wikia was Wikia Search, an open source web search engine intended to challenge Google and introduce transparency and public dialogue about how it is created into the search engine's operations, but the project was abandoned in March 2009. Wales stepped down as Wikia CEO to be replaced by angel investor Gil Penchina, a former vice president and general manager at eBay, on June 5, 2006. Penchina declared Wikia to have reached profitability in September 2009.

In addition to his role at Wikia, Wales is a public speaker represented by the Harry Walker Agency, which characterizes him as "the founder" of Wikipedia.

He has also participated in a celebrity endorsement campaign for the Swiss watch maker Maurice Lacroix.

Wikia and later pursuits
Early life and education
Role
Nupedia and the origins of Wikipedia