TechCrunch published an article today covering the news that “Seattle-based GraphLab has raised $18.5 million in new funding and picked up a new name, Dato.” Smartly, the company is now using Dato.com for its new website.
When I read the TechCrunch article, the Dato branding and Dato.com domain name rang a bell to me. I searched through my email archive, and I saw that John Daly’s NameConnect domain name sales newsletter had Dato.com listed for sale for $9,000 on December 3, 2014. Interestingly, according to NameBio, Dato.com was sold in May of 2008 for $9,001 on Sedo.
I am unsure of how the domain name was ultimately sold, as I did not see the domain name listed in any sales reports. That might be because the price wasn’t high enough to be listed or because the deal was transacted in private.
In a press release announcing the rebranding and funding, the company stated that it “changed its name and brand from GraphLab to Dato, reflecting the evolution of its popular machine learning platform which now enables the creation of intelligent applications based on any type of data, including graphs, tables, text and images.”
I think this is a wise rebranding decision. Dato seems like a concise, relevant brand name. Dato is easy for people to remember, and it’s a short domain name. It does not look like Dato was able to get the Dato Twitter or Dato Facebook handles (yet, perhaps).
The company appears to have acquired the exact match .com domain name for a reasonable price.
Thanks to Sahar for sharing this news via Twitter.
Interesting, thanks Elliot.
Gosh, if GraphLab ended up with Dato.com for $9k, that was a steal, even if only as a 4-letter brandable. Not that this is a fair comparison, but 3.5 years ago Salesforce.com purchased Data.com “for an amount that significantly exceeds the $1.5 million reserve.” (Moniker)
As you may know, the Terms & Conditions of Facebook and Twitter preclude the selling of user names. But of course, personal/private transactions do occur.
Hope to bump into you at NamesCon!
Bob
Funny, Dato in Malaysia is a title like “Sir”