Every week, we get to hear about some of the domain industry's largest recent sales thanks to DNJournal's highly respected weekly sales chart. However, most sales do not get reported for one reason or another. Experts such as Jamie Zoch (@Yofie) regularly post domain name movements, but naturally, some deals go under the radar.
Thanks to Crunchbase and DomainIQ, we've found six relatively recent .COM domain transactions that you may not know about. Note that these domains may not have been purchased outright, some may have been leased or acquired in other unknown deals.
Step.com
The first name on our list is a memorable, four-letter name, Step.com. This domain looks to have been included in the 2018 NamesCon auction, reaching a price of $51,000, but not selling. According to DomainIQ, the domain moved to Google's domain registrar in August 2018.
This name is now operated by Step, a financial service for teens and young adults, co-founded by ex-Google and Microsoft employee Alexey Kalinichenko. The company was only launched in 2018 but has already received $3.9 million in funding
Italic.com
Founded in 2018, Italic offers a marketplace that lets consumers shop straight from the world's top factories. The company has quickly attracted Series A funding to the tune of $13 million. It looks as though the company wasted no time in acquiring Italic.com, with the name moving to Google's domain registrar sometime in the last few months.
Prose.com
New York-based haircare brand Prose was created in 2017 by ex L'Oreal employee Arnaud Plas. Benefiting from $25 million in funding including an $18 million Series B funding round in November 2018, Prose look to have used some of that money to acquire Prose.com from Canadian software company Ensemble.
Based on DomainIQ's WHOIS history, the domain moved registrars under privacy protection in December 2018, although Archive.org suggests that Prose have been using Prose.com since at least November 2018.
Orchid.com
According to Archive.org, Orchid Labs has been using the Orchid.com domain since late 2017. The open source Internet censorship project has been backed by leading venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, raising $40.8 million in total.
The WHOIS history for this name is difficult to follow, but Google searches show that the domain was originally owned by Orchid Cellmark Inc, a company that was purchased by LabCorp in 2011. The domain name has held LabCorp nameservers from 2011 up to the beginning of 2019 when the name moved from Register.com to NameCheap.
Remember, this domain has been operated by Orchid Labs since 2017. Could this recent move signify that the domain has now been purchased outright by Orchid?
Jones.com
You may know about this domain name thanks to James Booth's (@BoothDomains) sale of Jones.com to Hostgator founder Brent Oxley for $100,000. However, you may not be aware that the domain name has moved ownership since then.
GoDaddy's WHOIS listing currently shows that Jones.com is registered to Texas-based Jones Companies Inc.
Currency.com
The last, but certainly not least, domain on our list is Currency.com. This powerhouse of a financial domain name is operated by a Gibraltar-based blockchain company, which was founded in 2018 by Ivan Gowan, an entrepreneur who also runs Capital.com, another domain deal that may have gone under the radar.
Currency.com is a tokenized security exchange and has already received $8 million in funding. Assuming Currency.com was purchased in an all-cash domain sale, something which hasn't been confirmed, it would likely be a firm seven, or even eight-figure sale.
Thanks to Crunchbase and DomainIQ, we've found six relatively recent .COM domain transactions that you may not know about. Note that these domains may not have been purchased outright, some may have been leased or acquired in other unknown deals.
Step.com
The first name on our list is a memorable, four-letter name, Step.com. This domain looks to have been included in the 2018 NamesCon auction, reaching a price of $51,000, but not selling. According to DomainIQ, the domain moved to Google's domain registrar in August 2018.
This name is now operated by Step, a financial service for teens and young adults, co-founded by ex-Google and Microsoft employee Alexey Kalinichenko. The company was only launched in 2018 but has already received $3.9 million in funding
Italic.com
Founded in 2018, Italic offers a marketplace that lets consumers shop straight from the world's top factories. The company has quickly attracted Series A funding to the tune of $13 million. It looks as though the company wasted no time in acquiring Italic.com, with the name moving to Google's domain registrar sometime in the last few months.
Prose.com
New York-based haircare brand Prose was created in 2017 by ex L'Oreal employee Arnaud Plas. Benefiting from $25 million in funding including an $18 million Series B funding round in November 2018, Prose look to have used some of that money to acquire Prose.com from Canadian software company Ensemble.
Based on DomainIQ's WHOIS history, the domain moved registrars under privacy protection in December 2018, although Archive.org suggests that Prose have been using Prose.com since at least November 2018.
Orchid.com
According to Archive.org, Orchid Labs has been using the Orchid.com domain since late 2017. The open source Internet censorship project has been backed by leading venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, raising $40.8 million in total.
The WHOIS history for this name is difficult to follow, but Google searches show that the domain was originally owned by Orchid Cellmark Inc, a company that was purchased by LabCorp in 2011. The domain name has held LabCorp nameservers from 2011 up to the beginning of 2019 when the name moved from Register.com to NameCheap.
Remember, this domain has been operated by Orchid Labs since 2017. Could this recent move signify that the domain has now been purchased outright by Orchid?
Jones.com
You may know about this domain name thanks to James Booth's (@BoothDomains) sale of Jones.com to Hostgator founder Brent Oxley for $100,000. However, you may not be aware that the domain name has moved ownership since then.
GoDaddy's WHOIS listing currently shows that Jones.com is registered to Texas-based Jones Companies Inc.
Currency.com
The last, but certainly not least, domain on our list is Currency.com. This powerhouse of a financial domain name is operated by a Gibraltar-based blockchain company, which was founded in 2018 by Ivan Gowan, an entrepreneur who also runs Capital.com, another domain deal that may have gone under the radar.
Currency.com is a tokenized security exchange and has already received $8 million in funding. Assuming Currency.com was purchased in an all-cash domain sale, something which hasn't been confirmed, it would likely be a firm seven, or even eight-figure sale.