Yesterday evening, TechCrunch reported that a company called Curve had raised $55 million in a Series B funding round. The latest funding round was based on a $250 million valuation. According to CrunchBase, this company had previously raised $12 million in funding, bringing its total funding to $67 million. Interestingly, Curve operates on the Curve.app domain name.
Curve, the ‘over-the-top’ banking platform, raises $55M at a $250M valuation https://t.co/ou5lSPI7dy by @sohear pic.twitter.com/RCGjkiMn7X
— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) July 15, 2019
It looks like Curve was founded back in 2015. Because .App domain names were introduced to the market by Google and became available to register in 2018, the company must have started out using a different domain name. I did a search of TechCrunch to see if I could find out what the original url was, and I learned the company had started out by using ImagineCurve.com as its domain name. That domain name now forwards to Curve.app. I presume the company didn’t integrate .app into its branding because it didn’t start out on the .app domain name.
Using DomainTools’ Whois History tool, I was able to see that Curve, Ltd. registered Curve.app on May 13, 2018. That would mean the company most likely acquired the domain name after .App was in General Availability, according to the CSC calendar. It is unclear how much Curve spent to buy Curve.app since Google had some premium price points for certain keyword .app domain names.
The brand match .com domain name, Curve.com, is owned by Internet entrepreneur turned domain investor Brent Oxley. The domain name currently has an Efty landing page announcing that it is available for sale. There is no list price for this domain name, so a prospective buyer would need to submit an offer and negotiate a deal with the registrant. I reached out to Brent last night to ask him what the asking price is, but he did not respond by the time of publication.
I will keep my eye on Curve.com to see if the company acquires it now that it has secured additional funding. It also looks like CurveApp.com is available for sale via the Dan.com marketplace for just under $5,000.
The fact that “Curve” on Google shows the Curve.app as the #1 result, is a prime example on how Google ranks domains/web sites with content vs. those lacking it.
If Curve.com were to be developed, the keyword’s Google results would be dependent on which company followed the current SEO practices most closely; the .com isn’t given preference by default.
Interesting. So the major incentive for this company to eventually purchase the domain curve.com would be to prevent another entity from buying it and building a popular site. Not so much losing type in traffic, which is something only boomers and senior citizens do? 🙂 type in backpain.com when they have back problems, rather than “back pain”
Oxley owns the .com, I see a nice payday in the future…
From Imaginecurve.com to the even less trustworthy curve.app, these guys have no common sense.
Things can change.
Worth 5 million at the very least! Anything less is a bargain. People delete apps due to Lack of Use and Lack of Space on the phone. Do not build your brand around an .app for the long term. Short term is fine.
Curve is a great name that you can also incorporate a logo into . Not many names have this. Apple, target, square have this, other do not. This is name f-gold. Time for that company to domainup.
Don Murray
Might as well be .testing or .notserious – no validity with email or with.app extension. It’s will just drive traffic to the .com, people have enough trouble remembering a .org or a .net. Major mistake not picking up curve.com before announcing this funding round, price of curve.com just rose tremendously. What’s curve.com worth to their competition? If a competitor purchased curve.com, it could put them out of business.
With the Curve Corporation adopting to the new gTLD from Google, it’s interesting to see where the domain technology is going with this. After doing some research, I’ve seen Munich.app being used as an Smart App City application that forwards to a secured – .de ccTLD. I wonder if the programming with the HSTS preload list actually works for the mass UI interface and scripts preventing ISP Tracking for the app user? As a web designer, I work with a few major app devs in the office that comment of this gTLD/.app being the future with companies moving away from .com’s since they’re taking and moving to the .app for stability in the marketplace? I see that cash.app/podcast.app are a few of the early adopters. I made phone calls to a few main registrar’s like godaddy.com and namecheap.com and companies who sell .app’s specifically like brand.app and appilife.app and had friendly responses of a few reps saying that city developers are inquiring about the same questions of security strength and speed to the website or app. The answers I got were that the .app domain backend technology made it easier for developers to create existing queries to make it work with the https security certificate/ssl resulting in Google pushing it to the top of the list on searches in comparison to a blank generic TLD that had no backend writing to secure the domain. In signing off, I guess we will have to see where our businesses/corporations go with their developers in referencing what’s best for the next generations of web pages/apps to come.
People seem to forget that app is a global keyword, it exists pretty much in all major languages and is used by all major media and news channels as THE word for application or software product. Old and young people understand it alike. Dot app is not known to masses yet, but they will have no problem adopting it overtime.
Curve.com has been acquired by curve.app
Curve.com got acquired.