sales Escrow.com purchased for $7.5 million

[equity78]

Freelancer.com announces the acquisition of Escrow.com and completion of capital raising

Some big news for a Sunday night, Escrow.com getting acquired by Freelancer.com. Back in September of 2014, Escrow.com purchased Agreed.com.

SYDNEY, April 27, 2015:

Freelancer.com, the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace,today announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Escrow.com from a private investor for US$7.5 million in cash, and completed a AUD$10 million placement of ordinary shares to institutional investors.

http://www.thedomains.com/2015/04/26/escrow-com-purchased-for-7-5million/

 

[GoWebnames.com]

Only $7 Million? Heck, I could have purchased it at that price without thinking twice.

This is a bloody good steal but not really a good news for domaining community as we have all noticed the level of service at FreeMarket.com, a freelancer arm.

WHAT in the world prompted Escrow.com to sell themselves so low? They do annual business of over $2B.
If Frank Schilling has some inkling, I am sure he would not have hesitated to purchase it outright. At least that would have been better IMHO.

The best I hope is that they don't overhaul the management & staff at Escrow.com

And I seriously hope, SEDO.com is not the next in line to be sold like this.

 

[enterscope]

Maybe they convinced them website sales are 10x monthly revenue...

 

[vivaldi]

Oh no.... this is bad news. Just read the threads about Freemarket.

 

[equity78]

Only $7 Million? Heck, I could have purchased it at that price without thinking twice.

This is a bloody good steal but not really a good news for domaining community as we have all noticed the level of service at FreeMarket.com, a freelancer arm.

WHAT in the world prompted Escrow.com to sell themselves so low? They do annual business of over $2B.
If Frank Schilling has some inkling, I am sure he would not have hesitated to purchase it outright. At least that would have been better IMHO.

The best I hope is that they don't overhaul the management & staff at Escrow.com

And I seriously hope, SEDO.com is not the next in line to be sold like this.

Escrow did $5million in Revenue in 2014, transaction value does not equate to their revenue.

Sedo is owned by a public company United Internet (UTDI) German Exchange.

 

[Genius327]

And and did they use Escrow.com for payment? :D

 

[GoWebnames.com]

Escrow did $5million in Revenue in 2014, transaction value does not equate to their revenue.

That is quite alright but the annual revenue is not sole qualifying factor for sale of such great assets, customer outreach is the one of other major defining factors for arriving at an acquisition price.
You know the valuations at which Twitter.com got funded 100s millions at NO REVENUE Model.
Whatsapp was not making anything when Facebook acquired it for $20 Billion. Just think how many 10s millions are there in there.

This is probably a missed opportunity for many who may have been willing to pay much higher price for this business. Escrow.com is a great brand on a great domain name, the right ownership could have easily expanded it to escrow transactions for general business, beyond the domain industry.

 

[Messiah]

If they had revenue of $5 million in 2014, they should have sold it for more being a great third party service. They bought WarriorForum for $3.2 Million. Escrow.com has better business than WarriorForum.

 

[equity78]

That is quite alright but the annual revenue is not sole qualifying factor for sale of such great assets, customer outreach is the one of other major defining factors for arriving at an acquisition price.
You know the valuations at which Twitter.com got funded 100s millions at NO REVENUE Model.
Whatsapp was not making anything when Facebook acquired it for $20 Billion. Just think how many 10s millions are there in there.

This is probably a missed opportunity for many who may have been willing to pay much higher price for this business. Escrow.com is a great brand on a great domain name, the right ownership could have easily expanded it to escrow transactions for general business, beyond the domain industry.

I agree with your sentiments, there is a disconnect however, VC funding is different that a business with established revenue. They even make joke of it tonight on Silicon Valley on HBO.

For funding or buyout at the start up level, you would rather have nothing but potential to get those bidding wars or huge funding rounds, if you go out and get some revenue you have defined yourself, and may disappoint.

The key to being the Wizard of Oz is never let them see behind the curtain.

 

[RU]

freemarket & freeescrow

 

[Eric Lyon]

I remember when Freelancer.com acquired Webmaster-Talk.com in 2010 (member since 2007) for it's userbase and expansion with an already active webmaster community forum to add to freelancer's arsenal of support and interaction. They changed the name to "Tycoon Talk" (TycoonTalk.Freelancer.com) soon after the acquisition and the activity of the members went on a downward spiral once new management took hold.

I'm not sure if it was the new policies, the new management interaction, or the big push for members to join and participate in Freelancer.com that started warding off it's top contributing members and causing it to go stale.

However, with the seemingly consistent downward spiral of participation over the next few years and learning from their mistakes with Webmaster-Talk, Freelancer.com then acquired WarriorForum for a 2nd round and different approach in retention. This time, they retained the Branding instead of switching everything up and appear to have had way better retention rates. Now TycoonTalk.Freelancer.com redirects to WarriorForum.

I'm hoping that not much changes with Escrow.com as far as policies and procedures. it's nice that they are keeping the staff on board so that there are familiar faces during the first 1 to 3 years of transition. I would like to think that after the lesson of rebranding during the acquisition of webmaster-talk that they retain the Escrow brand and use tact when addressing the users. I would hate to see a loss of retention or trust if they start another blanket push for the freelancer.com services again.

I've been a member of Freelancer.com since 2006 / Webmaster-Talk since 2007 / and WarriorForum since 2007. So I was able to see the fall throughout the transition. Sadly, I was one of the contributing members that ended up not logging back in within a few months of the Webmaster-Talk acquisition due to the entire atmosphere of the community changing for reasons encompassing (but not limited to) the lack of participants anymore, to blanketed cross promotion tactics, to the language barriers of the new support team.

I'm sure that Freelancer.com will do a much better job with Escrow.com now that they have some great acquisition experience under their belt allowing them to use the knowledge learned from past mistakes to make a better future.

 

[domainerfella]

Breaking News! All the freemarket bashers, give them some time. They have already made one big purchase. Flippa now has its own escrow. This could have affected Escrow's revenue. Freemarket will definitely get better and would be a great competitor.

 

[Nattydomain]

I hope this does not got go through....It will be a LOSS for any one using Escrow that is tied in with Freelance. They cant get their shit straight at all. This is very very sad and makes me feel I have no place to go for large sales. I hope the deal falls through somehow!

 

[Sheogorath]

Escrow.com was sold for extremely cheap price.
$7.5m for a domain, brand and company of this scale is way too low.
I appraise Escrow.com website+domain+brand as about mid-high $xx,xxx,xxx at the very least.

It is common that after a company purchases a new service/website, it changes the price list so the different services are more expensive.
Also, it is unknown if freelancer.com will make the Escrow.com exclusive to it's own market & services.
I hope freelancer.com will maintain the current atmosphere, procedures and price list of Escrow.com.
If not, I will leave and use a different Escrow service.

 

[Constantin S]

When I saw this news I couldn't belive my eyes how cheap was sold, fFeelancer knows how to buy other businesses...hopefully they will be able to improve or at least mentain Escrow at same level is now.

 

[RogueWriter]

Crap, there goes escrow.com. Freelancer/Freemarket is horrible.

 

[Eric Lyon]

Some more in-depth information and number crunching concerning the acquisition can be found in Michael Gilmour's article here:

For many years, Escrow.com has been the company of choice used by many domain investors for their sales and acquisitions. Escrow also partners with eBay, GoDaddy, AutoTrader.com and Flippa.com and has a strategic partnership with the U.S. Commercial Service (USCS) in support of President Obama’s National Export Initiative designed to significantly grow US export volume.

Since Escrow.com has been a private company this is the first time that we’ve had a glimpse into the financials driving the business. As can be seen from the chart below, Escrow.com has experienced continued growth even in the downturn years of 2012 and 2013. According to the press release announcement, for the FY14, Escrow.com has facilitated a gross payment volume of US$265 million, net revenue of just over US$5 million, US$1.2 million in EBITDA.

Given the $7.5 million price tag this means that Freelancer is paying at least a multiple of 6.25. This seems reasonable given the strength, sustainability and market position of the Escrow.com business.

As a part of the Freelancer group Escrow.com will become part of a public company. I believe that this will further enhance Escrow.com’s reputation as the only licensed, bonded and audited secure online solution that protects both the buyer and seller.

In the past year Freelancer’s share price has fallen from a high of just over AU$1.18 to a low of AU$54.5 in December last year. Since that time it has accelerated upwards to its present levels. Even as I write this article I can see the price has gone over the $0.995 level to $1.013….so it looks like today will be a good day.

Full Article: http://whizzbangsblog.com/index.php...hive/entry/freelancer-com-acquires-escrow-com

 

[Shimmy]

Has anyone used another 3rd party escrow service that they could recommend? After I read about Freelancer.com doing reversals and allowing sellers to lose both their domain and money on their freemarket.com site. I have zero trust in anything they run.

 

[Jasonn]

It would appear they did not shop this around and were desperate to sell... but why?

 

[Joseph Green]

Has anyone used another 3rd party escrow service that they could recommend?

DN.com is my first choice now. You can get a free transaction with them here: https://www.namepros.com/threads/get-a-free-escrow-transaction-at-dn-com.850146/

 

[Jasonn]

DN.com is my first choice now. You can get a free transaction with them here: https://www.namepros.com/threads/get-a-free-escrow-transaction-at-dn-com.850146/

too bad they are based in china...

 

[forge]

WHAT in the world prompted Escrow.com to sell themselves so low? They do annual business of over $2B.

Incorrect.

FY14 gross payment volume of US$265 million. Over US$2.2 billion in transactions to date (according to the Domain Investing article). That's since they've been operating.

 

[johname]

What I find is so weird is everyone knows what ebay did with paypal. You would think other big companies would be drooling over escrow.com. It's the equivalent in domaining of selling a great parking domain for 18 month's income.

I will go under escrow.com business as usual until I see different (as far as still using them)

 

[Jasonn]

are they licensed and bonded in the US? I doubt it. I also don't want to wait for wires to come from china. i get wires from escrow.com same day.

 

[Joseph Green]

I also don't want to wait for wires to come from china. i get wires from escrow.com same day.

I live in the United States. I have received 4 wires from China in the last 6 months and all of them arrived the same day. Latest wire was just last week.

 

[Chris Wright]

What about eCop?
I that a worthy substitute?