Compound (.Finance) Raises $8.2 Million

A startup using a .Finance domain name has raised an $8.2 million round of funding from some of the leading venture capital firms, according to TechCrunch. Compound Labs, which can be found by visiting Compound.Finance, was founded in 2017. The VC firms that reportedly invested in Compound include Coinbase’s venture fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, and Bain Capital Ventures. .Finance is a new gTLD domain name extension operated by Donuts.

I think this news is notable for two reasons.

The lack of a .com domain name did not stop the company from getting this large funding round. It would seem that owning the matching Compound.com domain name was not deemed critical to its launch. Assuming a deal to acquire the domain name has not been reached, it would seem that the startup is cool with proceeding sans the matching .com domain name. Having a major funding round publicly announced can make the matching .com domain name more expensive. For what its worth, DomainIQ values it at $156,000.

The company is branded as Compound, and its corporate name is Compound Labs. The startup is not using its .Finance domain name in its branding. This is an interesting decision and could potentially pose a search engine challenge for people looking to find it via Google or even Twitter. A Google search of “Compound” yields many results, with Compound Labs’ website far down the list. Ironically, the TechCrunch article ranks much higher.

It looks like the Compound.com domain name is owned by a domain investment company. The parked landing page has a “for sale” link at the top, so Compound Labs could try to buy the domain name if it wants to own it. With an $8.2 million round of funding, it seems like Compound Labs can afford to acquire Compound.com.

I’ll monitor Compound.com to see if the domain name changes hands any time soon.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

10 COMMENTS

  1. Compound certainly does not lack the funds to purchase the .com. This is further evidence that the crypto universe is looking at .com as being centralized, while the new G’s are being looked at as being decentralized. I am not advocating either .com or New G’s, I am just observing a trend.

    • Further evidence for those building on the web understand L.page’s algorithm. No weight is given to an extension being .com

      Yes the .com narrative will convince Baby boomers & Generation X.

      Larry page has the last word. Doesn’t matter what person(s) say what we all sing to the google search hymn sheet. in Baby boomers & Generation X brands mattered now they don’t.

      Influencers are far more important in 2018 & beyond than brands

  2. That is great news for Compound.finance and Im really happy for them, but for those who are saying you don’t need a .com for business…i would reconsidered. Im actually curious how many domainers are business owners. Im actually a business guy before im a domainer and a lot of what is being said from a business perspective is actually not true. Companies that are building businesses on gtlds you can count on 1 hand at most on 2 hands. The .com is still business standard.

    I just got done reading “Entrepreneur” magazine today and in one of the articles a company was discussing how they chose their business name. One criteria for choosing a business name was having the .com available. If it wasn’t available then the company would choose a completely different business name altogether.

    I’ve even went out of my way to find businesses that were built on gtlds and check them later again only to find out its now being redirected to a .com domain. You’ll have daring startups that decide to build a buisness on a gtld but once they’ve become establish I guarantee they will choose a tld. Gtlds are only good as “assisting domains”. Something to type in the address bar to get to a certain page of a companies website.

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