According to a press release I received a moment ago (and published below), MMX has acquired ICM Registry, the company that operates several adult related domain extensions. ICM Registry extensions include .XXX, .Sex, .Porn, and .Adult.

The press releases stated that the deal involves "a combination of cash and shares," although the dollar amount was not revealed in the press release I received. The Palm Beach Post published an article about the deal and wrote that the "British firm Minds + Machines Group paid $10 million in cash for the company." I am not sure if the total value of the deal is $10 million or if that is just the cash portion as the Post reported. I will connect with the ICM Registry to try and clear this up.

Update: ICM CEO Stuart Lawley clarified this discrepancy for me. He reported the total value of the deal is $41 million, with $10 million in cash and $31 million worth of stock at yesterdays's closing price. Here's a link to the official stock market announcement.

On May 2, Domain Incite reported that → Read More

According to an article published on LinkedIn yesterday, Directi has been named the #1 company on the 2018 LinkedIn Top Companies in India list. This list is comprised of companies that have offices in India where professionals would most like to work, "based on the actions of LinkedIn’s more than 546 million professionals (over 47 million in India alone)." Here's how the list was determined:

"The Top Companies list is based on the billions of actions taken by LinkedIn members and looks at four main pillars: interest in the company, engagement with the company’s employees, job demand and employee retention."

Prior to the live auction today at NamesCon, Escrow.com announced its annual Masters of Domains awards to the ten highest grossing individual domain investors of the past year. The award is based on brokered transactions closed via Escrow.com. Each award winner was presented a special trophy and prize honoring their achievement.

This year, the top three Masters of Domains winners were Raymond Liu of 62.com, Andrew Rosener of Media Options, and Mohammed Hashim Al-Asadi of TopNames. I would imagine each of these top three brokers cleared over $10 million in deals last year. That is quite an achievement. Last year's award winners can be found here.

Here are the ten award winning brokers for 2018 with some information about each provided by Escrow.com: (more…) → Read More

In addition to being entrepreneurial, it should come as no surprise that Braden Pollock is also known for his philanthropy. Braden has been a Big Brother for many years, and he is also involved in a host of other philanthropic activities, including being a board member at the Benevolent.net non-profit organization.

On February 7, Braden will be honored by the Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles (JBBBSLA) as its Big Brother of the Year. The organization will be hosting an event honoring Braden as well as its Big Sister of the Year (Lauren Kurzweil) and Inspiration Award (Marc Mostman). This annual event includes a cocktail party and dinner which raises funds for the organization. For those who are unaware, Big Brothers Big Sisters pairs participants with an older Big Brother or Big Sister who act as a mentor and friend. I am sure Braden thrives in this role in the same way he is a mentor and friend to many of us in the domain industry.

Here is a bit of background about Braden's involvement in the organization, as → Read More

Most private companies do not share revenue figures and other internal financial benchmarks. I think many look at the privacy aspect as an advantage of running a privately held business.

This morning, Radix published a press release with some of its financial data. I don't recall seeing other private companies in the domain space share their numbers, so it is a unique bit of insight. As you know, Radix is a privately owned domain registry operator. The company operates nine new gTLD domain extensions, including .Website, .Online, .Host, .Tech, and several others. Here is some of the data Radix shared:

• $11.7 million in annual revenue, not including December (expected to surpass $12 million)


• More than 50% of total revenue was contributed by non-premium domain renewals


• $1.76 million in revenue attributed to premium domains sold and renewed (both via registrar channel and direct)


• 49.6% of revenue from the US, 14.4% of revenue from Germany, and 7.7% of revenue from China

A friend of mine told me about an email he received from DropCatch.com yesterday informing him of a refund that he is being given because of "bidding activity from users that were later suspended for non-payment might have affected the final price."

There is an active thread on NamePros about the topic of non-paying bidders on DropCatch.com. The founders of DropCatch, Andrew Reberry and Jeff Reberry of TurnCommerce, addressed members' concerns about non-paying bidders and the alleged irregular bidding activity in the NamePros thread. Andrew and Jeff also promised to investigate this issue, and it looks like they are taking action based on their findings. The objective was to identify what went wrong, make bidders whole, and improve the platform for the future to restore trust.

In the email sent to my friend, DropCatch referenced a blog post the company published in conjunction with the email. The blog post has additional information about the situation, what the company is doing to remedy it, and a go-forward plan to reduce → Read More