I learned that Hear.com has been sold via Sedo. The domain name registrant is currently listed as Sedo, and the registrant email address is the one the company uses for its domain brokerage escrow service. The price for the domain name is not going to be shared due to a non-disclosure agreement.
The seller of the domain name is a domain investment and development company called Finlead AG. I am told that Finlead acquired the domain name in 2011. Since the domain name is still in escrow, I am unsure of who the buyer is.
Hear.com was listed for sale in March in the Brannan’s domain brokerage newsletter with a price of $500,000. It had previously been listed for sale for $70,000 in Toby Clements’ newsletter back in 2011. I checked Namebio, and I could not find any archived sales, so I am not sure if the domain name sold publicly.
Commenting on the pending sale, Finlead CEO Daniel Bruderer told me, “When I saw hear.com was for up sale in 2011 the decision to buy it didn’t take too long. It’s a great name and a true gem. We had a couple of interesting offers over the past years and now we finally found an end user that was willing to pay our desired price. Congrats to the buyer. I am sure this domain will never return to the market.”
Once the new owner of the domain name is revealed, I will update the article (if it becomes public).
> “…and now we finally found an end user that was willing to pay our desired price.”
Who we? Seller or broker found the buyer? Or none of them, but buyer hired broker to get the name?
Fails the radio test. Value is greatly diminshed. If you really want to lose traffic to another site, you may as well get yourself a new gtld.
We need to put our ears to the ground for latest info on this as it unfolds because hear.com is a such a juicy name.
hear.com is a true success story. 1 year later, who would have thought we would have grown so fast?! To answer your question Elliot, hear.com was purchased by EQT Holdings, aka Sivantos. Sivantos purchased the hearing care division of Siemens in January of 2015, and then went on to form hear.com in July of 2015 after acquiring audibene GmbH in March, 2015. Today hear.com is located in Coral Gables, FL and employs over 100 people. We are now the largest online hearing care provider in the US and partner with over 1,500 audiologists nationwide.