IT.COM

sales Hippo.com Changes Hands

Spaceship Spaceship
Earlier this week the high-value domain name hippo.com apparently changed hands. The domain name now redirects to MyHippo.com, the site of Hippo Insurance. The company now brands simply hippo, writing it in all small letters.

Hippo is licensed to offer insurance in a number of states in U.S.A. They offer policies exclusively through insurance partners including Topa, Spinnaker and Canopius US. Their business model includes simplifying the process of obtaining insurance. For example, hippo advertise 60 second quotes. They also use technology-assisted claims handling.

Another innovation by the company is utilization of sensors and smart devices to bring Internet of Things advantages to protection and insurance. In their own words

"We leverage smart home technology to help our homeowners keep homes safe and prevent potential accidents."

Hippo provide a basic dual-sensor smart device with their policies for early warning of potential issues and dangers.

The domain name hippo.com was first registered on 30 July 1997. The domain name in recent years was registered at Uniregistry. While the most recent records have ownership cloaked under privacy, for many years the domain name was held by Next Navigation PTY of Australia. Next Navigation PTY have held a strong and diverse portfolio of domain names for some time, and in 2011 sold a number of domains including feline, pathology, GasStation, trillion and rivalry. Next Navigation PTY still hold hundreds of domain names including numerous high-value names.

No price has yet been released for the domain name to my knowledge. There are no prior sales listed in NameBio for the exact word hippo.

A number of companies have now lost the opportunity to upgrade to hippo including both Hippo Video and Hippo Manager, two companies that each raised seven figure funding this year. Medical education innovator Hippo Education would have been another obvious potential user of the domain name, as well as a number of other possibilities.

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I would like to thank @James Iles for pointing out this sale, as well as helping with research data. I also acknowledge DomainIQ for use of their powerful set of domain tools.
 
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That's interesting. I recently hand regged JoinHippo. Hmmm, we'll see I suppose. Maybe one of the companies that recently got funding might be interested. :)
 
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An interesting sale and end-user for hippo.com - thanks for posting the known details!
 
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Great info. Thanks for sharing.

The rebranding season is still open:xf.smile:
 
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not hippo.io, or hippo.club, or hippo.???????????? Dotcom is still king!
 
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Good news. I am very happy to hear that hippo has a good place and played its due role. Thank you @Bob Hawkes.
 
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Always nice to see these valid end user sales reports, no b.s. parked domain here or domainer to domainer sale. Strange and funny video to buy insurance. Keep posting these end user sales. Thanks for sharing!
 
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@EJS has an article on the hippo sale this morning. He speculates it is probably a seven figure sale. What price do you think this domain probably sold at?

He also links to a Fortune article that states the valuation of the company has reached the billion dollar mark for unicorn status.

Assuming that the price is eventually revealed, and @DotWeekly tweeted on the hippo sale this morning, he is the master sleuth at digging high value domain name sales data out of company financial reports, do you think this will pull up the price of other domain names that include the name hippo, or will there be no impact on other names such as multiple words including hippo or other extensions?

If I was at hippo I would make the sale price known as high value sales get publicity that will help the company in its growth goals as more learn of the service.

Hopefully at some point we will know the price!

Bob
 
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The best part is this: Hippo Insurance ranks at #1 for "hippo" although they use MyHippo .com for their corporate domain. Meanwhile, the parked domain Hippo.com is nowhere to be found.

That's because MyHippo is ranked by Google based on the relevancy of the keyword to real services under that brand. Google doesn't care if you have the exact match .com sitting parked - it will never rank because there's no content on it that is worth ranking for.

Moral of the story: your killer .com, or your not so killer .org, .net or dot .banana even, will never rank unless developed. Parked domains, and most of those with just a For Sale lander won't get even close to Google's #1 page.
 
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Once more, thanks for latest sharing
 
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The best part is this: Hippo Insurance ranks at #1 for "hippo" although they use MyHippo .com for their corporate domain. Meanwhile, the parked domain Hippo.com is nowhere to be found.

That's because MyHippo is ranked by Google based on the relevancy of the keyword to real services under that brand. Google doesn't care if you have the exact match .com sitting parked - it will never rank because there's no content on it that is worth ranking for.

Moral of the story: your killer .com, or your not so killer .org, .net or dot .banana even, will never rank unless developed. Parked domains, and most of those with just a For Sale lander won't get even close to Google's #1 page.

It shouldn't rank if not developed.
 
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It shouldn't rank if not developed.

My point exactly. A generic domain alone does not magically propel you in Google. URL forwarders, same thing.
 
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Bloomberg reported this week that Hippo has raised another $150 million in funding and now has $1.5 billion valuation. Does anyone know yet the price the domain name went for? Presume when they go public it will be findable in company financial filings.
Bob
 
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Bloomberg reported this week that Hippo has raised another $150 million in funding and now has $1.5 billion valuation. Does anyone know yet the price the domain name went for? Presume when they go public it will be findable in company financial filings.
Bob

There last round of funding was series D

They are a private company so do not need to release any end of year financial reports, I personally could not find any online...
 
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There last round of funding was series D

They are a private company so do not need to release any end of year financial reports, I personally could not find any online...
Thanks @NickB. I was referring to their planned IPO. Bloomberg article says this:
Hippo, which was valued at about $1 billion in a funding round last year, is preparing for a potential initial public offering, said Chief Executive Officer Assaf Wand.
 
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