Tag: domain transactions

Banxa announces AUD $3 million sale of crypto-related domain names, with more to come

Publicly-listed Banxa has announced the sale of AUD $3 million worth of crypto-related domain names to Independent Reserve (an Australian crypto exchange). 1 $AUD is worth approximately USD $0.67 at the time of this post.

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Connect.com domain name acquired by Hubspot for $10 million

[NB: As I’ve noted on Twitter,

I don’t appreciate folks who are not citing my work. So, I’m “on strike”. That being said, I’ll make an exception for an eight-figure domain name transaction.]

Hubspot disclosed in a SEC filing (see p. 20) that they acquired the Connect.com domain name for USD $10 million:

In the three months ended June 30, 2022, the Company purchased the rights to the domain name “connect.com” for $10.0 million.

I’d write a longer analysis, but as I said, I’m on strike. People should appreciate that very few are actually doing original research. If you use their hard work , then you should cite and link to it, rather than just taking the results of that research to generate page views, attention, or advertising revenue (remember, this site has no ads). Don’t be a parasite or a ‘taker’. Be a giver.

There’s an important ICANN comment period about transfers policy, where I’ve asked for a deadline of mid-September in order to complete my own comments in a thorough manner. Ensuring domain names aren’t stolen should be everyone’s priority, but that working group would lower security by eliminating an important safeguard (namely the ability to “NACK” a transfer before it has completed). The Internet Commerce Association submitted a comment a couple of days ago,  echoing some of the concerns I expressed on my blog. But, my concerns and comments go far deeper, and I need the time to write them all up.

If you appreciate this work, why don’t you take a moment and contact them to reiterate the need for a mid-September deadline? (see their contact info in my previous blog post here)

Update: Elliot Silver reported on the change of ownership of of the domain name in an April blog post (although, at the time the price was not known). DomainGang also recently reported on a matching TM filing. (these articles didn’t impact my research, but are worth mentioning regardless)

Grove.com domain name acquired for $873,000 in 2019 by Grove Collaborative

In December 2021, Grove Collaborative announced their intention to go public via a SPAC. While Grove operates from the Grove.co domain name, they also own the elite one-word dot-com Grove.com (which simply redirects to their .co). Are we able to determine the acquisition cost of that  domain name?

As an aside, this domain name movement had been noticed in 2020 by Jamie Zoch, as noted on Twitter:

A recent SEC filing disclosed (on page F-26) the “purchase of intangible assets” in the amount of USD $873,000 in 2019. This was atypical, as there were no similar purchases in 2020 or 2021.

Using the WHOIS history at DomainTools.com, we can confirm that the grove.com domain name used to be owned by “The Grove Consultants” in 2019. But, the domain name then went into WHOIS privacy. Using Archive.org, we can see that the Grove Consultants changed their domain name to “TheGrove.com” in late 2019. By the start of 2020, the domain name’s redirection changed, so that it redirected to Grove Collaborative’s grove.co website instead.

Thus, I believe it’s safe to conclude that Grove Collaborative acquired the Grove.com domain name for USD $873,000 in 2019, albeit with a transition agreement so that the prior owners could redirect the domain name for a period of time. By 2020, the transition agreement had concluded.

ASAP.com and related domain names acquired for $3,006,000 by Waitr

In December 2021, Waitr Holdings disclosed that they were rebranding, and had acquired the ASAP.com domain name. This was noted on Twitter by Elliot Silver (and others):

This week, Waitr’s annual report disclosed that the acquisition cost of those domain names was USD $3,006,000. This appeared on pages 53, F-6 and F-22 of the SEC filing.

Normally, DNJournal doesn’t chart transactions where the purchase price is for multiple domain names (unless the value assigned to each domain name is known). However, given that the primary domain name that was acquired was ASAP.com, with the other related domain names not even mentioned in the SEC filings, I think it’s safe to conclude that the other domain names held negligible value.

Galaxy Digital acquired the Galaxy.com domain name for $1.8 million

[UPDATED AGAIN ON FEBRUARY 11, 2023:  In a more recent filing from Galaxy, we can determine a more accurate figure for the domain name transaction, namely USD $1,761,000. This figure appears in several places in the SEC filing, e.g. as “Cash paid for purchase of intangible asset” on pages F-6, F-49, and F-123; on pages F-22 and F-85, it’s listed as “Indefinite-lived intangible asset”]

[UPDATED AGAIN ON JANUARY 31, 2022:  After further information from the buyer’s broker, it turns out that USD $1.8 million was indeed the amount received by the seller of the Galaxy.com domain name. Any additional fees that changed hands between the buyer and the buyer’s broker are more properly characterized as “success fees.”]

[UPDATED ON JANUARY 30, 2022: Based on additional information from the buyer’s broker, it’s now unclear whether the transaction price for the Galaxy.com domain name was USD $1.8 million, so we’ve adjusted the headline and text below accordingly.]

A new SEC filing by Galaxy Digital has disclosed that they purchased a domain for USD $1.8 million last year. See page F-25 of the filing, which states:

During the third quarter of 2021, the Company purchased a website domain name for $1.8 million.

While the SEC filing didn’t reveal the actual domain name, Galaxy.com was the likely candidate for the domain name upgrade, given that their current primary domain name is GalaxyDigital.io. The Galaxy.com domain name is under WHOIS privacy, which doesn’t assist us in proving the ownership of that domain. And there is no active website at present for Galaxy.com. However, there are other clues which point to Galaxy Digital as the new owner of the Galaxy.com domain name.

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Forge.com domain name acquired for $2.2 million by Forge Global

Forge Global, a private securities marketplace, revealed in a recent SEC filing that it had acquired the forge.com domain name in the third quarter of 2021 for USD $2,202,000. This was documented on pages F-96 and F-97 of the filing.

Forge Global announced in September its intention to go public in a $2 billion SPAC deal.