Waldo is a startup that allows its users to “create reliable automated mobile tests with the world’s first no-code testing platform.” Earlier today, Waldo announced a $15 million round of funding on its company blog. The company was founded in 2018, and it has been using the Waldo.io domain name for its website. Here’s what the company shared today:

“Today, I am proud to announce that Waldo closed a $15M Series A round led by Joshua Zelman at Insight Partners with the participation of Matrix Partners and First Round Capital. Also joining us in this round Nicolas Dessaigne (Founder of Algolia), Ben Porterfield (Co-founder of Looker), Tyler Gaffney (CEO of Zenhub) and Keenan Rice (GM at Firebolt).”

Last year, I took down the “Make Offer” option on most of my Dan.com listings. Perhaps because many of my names might be considered overpriced to some extent, it didn’t lead to more BIN sales as I hoped. I put back the “Make Offer” option late last year because I enjoy the back and forth of a negotiation on a 4 figure name as much as on a 6 figure name.

More often than not, I price a domain name when I acquire it and don’t make adjustments on a regular basis. If I bought an expiry auction name for $250 and list it on Dan.com with a $3,999 asking price, I don’t tend to make price adjustments very often across the portfolio. Yeah, I might leave money on the table if a name becomes in demand and I haven’t repriced it in a while, but making a solid profit on replaceable inventory is fine with me.

Last Summer, a prospective buyer made an offer on one of my domain names that was too low for me to accept. I had sold a similar name for substantially more, and I told her my expected price range. Out of the blue in late December, she upped her offer substantially to a number that was in-range. I counter offered about 20% higher and did not hear back. After doing some research specific to the domain name and similar names, I came to the conclusion that her offer was very fair, and I sent her a purchase link via Dan.com.

When I didn’t hear back from this prospective buyer after a few weeks, I figured she had either chosen something else or opted to not reply as a negotiating tactic. Perhaps she thought that I might have even more flexibility if she came back in the future. She may have assumed that if I was willing to lower my price to her offer, perhaps I would be willing to reduce it further to salvage the deal. Another thought was that her offer wasn’t backed by any funding so she couldn’t buy it. Whatever the case, I let the deal die on the vine.

I was looking through some old purchase inquiries today to touch base and express continued interest in acquiring specific domain names. One such name I came across in my email is Republic.com. I tried to buy the asset a few years ago and did not have success with it. Upon checking to see how the domain name is being used today, I noticed what appears to be a new website.

A bit of research showed that the domain name was acquired by a crypto company called Republic. Its LinkedIn page says the company was founded in 2016. The startup had been using Republic.CO for its website, and I can only assume it must have spent quite a bit of money to acquire the brand match Republic.com domain name for its business. The .CO domain name is now forwarding to Republic.com.

The upgraded domain name was announced on the company’s Twitter page earlier this week, where it cited “a new phase of growth and maturity” as a reason for the acquisition and upgrade to Republic.com:

It would be difficult to pick the top domain name in the Digimedia portfolio. The company holds one of the most valuable privately-held domain name portfolios with hundreds of exceptional domain names. If I were asked to make a list of the top 10 domain names I have seen in the company’s portfolio, Make.com would likely be on the list. It appears that Make.com was sold by the company.

Digimedia infrequently sells its assets, so it is notable when I see one of the company’s domain names change hands. Over the weekend, I detected a Whois change via one of my DomainTools monitor alerts. Make.com transferred to United Domains with Whois privacy enabled. It had previously been registered to Digimedia at Tucows.