Hilco Streambank Rebrands IPv4Auctions.com to IPv4.Global

In an email sent yesterday afternoon, Hilco Streambank announced it will be rebranding its IPv4Auctions.com website to IPv4.Global. This is Hilco Streambank’s platform for selling version 4 Internet Protocol addresses.

I asked Hilco Streambank CEO Gabe Fried why they chose a .Global domain name for their platform. Here’s what Gabe told me:

“IPv4.Global is short and descriptive, and we wanted to move all of our IPv4 business under one roof. When we started we were doing private brokerage under the Hilco Streambank name but launched IPv4auctions as a service for a market who didn’t necessarily have any prior knowledge of Hilco or Streambank and it was a great searchable name (as is ipv4.global) but the word “auction” was too narrow in its description of what we are doing (buy side representation, brokerage, consulting, and the auction platform). The market is truly global as we serve clients in every market around the world. Additionally, since there’s very little synergy with the core Hilco Streambank intellectual property valuation/acquisition/disposition business and the relationships are different (direct with mostly non-executive contacts in a commodity industry) and the industry was new (still in its infancy) we thought we’d launch a stand-alone brand.”

I followed up by asking Gabe if he could share whether or not he sees any friction with the .Global rebrand as it is introduced. The target audience for their platform is in the tech space, and I would be curious to know whether this tech savvy audience understands what .Global is.

It should also be noted that Hilco Streambank also owns IPV4Global.com, which it will redirect to its website. If they have @IPV4.Global email addresses, it would be wise to set up email forwarding on the .com domain name to ensure delivery.