GoDaddy’s Brandsight Acquisition is Notable

Earlier this morning, GoDaddy announced that the company will acquire Uniregistry, in a deal expected to close in the second quarter of this year. This is obviously huge news for domain investors for a variety of reasons. What might get lost in the domain investment space is the news that GoDaddy is also going to be acquiring Brandsight, a corporate domain name management and consulting firm. I also think this is an important acquisition for GoDaddy.

GoDaddy has many tools and services particularly suited for small to medium sized businesses. GoDaddy is the world’s largest domain name registrar with nearly 20 million customers, and I believe the company’s primary target audience is SMBs and individual entrepreneurs.

Brandsight has a much different target audience, catering to very corporate large clients. The company offers tailored domain name management and brand protection services to its clientbase, and the acquisition should give Brandsight more resources and access to additional tools.

In a blog post this morning, here’s what Brandsight founder and CEO Phil Lodico said about how the acquisition will impact its customers:

“Brandsight will continue to operate with the same great high levels of service and support that they have come to expect. That said, Brandsight clients will benefit from our access to additional technology and resources which will increase significantly as a result of the acquisition. This means that we’ll be able to further accelerate our focus on building secure, intuitive and powerful corporate domain management solutions.”

From what I understand, Brandsight will retain its own identity. The company will be a part of GoDaddy, but it will operate independently from GoDaddy. I think this is important because it will allow Brandsight to have access to GoDaddy services and tools for its customers, while retaining its concierge-level customer support.