ICM Registry: Sex.xxx Sells for $3 Million

According to an email and press release I received this morning from Stuart Lawley, Chairman and President of ICM Registry, the Sex.XXX domain name just sold for $3 million. This deal is “part of a groundbreaking $5 million, multi-year deal with ICM Registry.” The buyer is a company called Barron Innovations, and they acquired “more than 40 Premium Generic Keyword Domains” as part of this large deal. The payment terms were not announced.

Based on the Domaining.com list of the largest domain name sales of all time, this sale would rank as one of the 25 largest publicly reported sales. The $3 million reported price tag ties the sales of Candy.com, Vodka.com, and Loans.com, all of which are recorded on the list at $3 million each. Sex.com was reportedly sold for $13 million in 2010.

The press release contains much more information about this sale, and I published it below for you to read:

Sex Sells!! For $ 3.0 million to be precise!

The SEX.xxx domain, one of the top-rated adult domains on the Internet, has been acquired by Barron Innovations as part of a groundbreaking $5 million, multi-year deal with ICM Registry (“ICM”).

The $5 million deal includes more than 40 Premium Generic Keyword Domains and the highly desirable SEX.xxx accounts for $3 million of the total. Other notable names include cam.xxx, phone.xxx and black.xxx, all of which attracted six-figure sales prices, as well as web.xxx, market.xxx, mate.xxx and education.xxx.

According to Stephen Winyard, director of ICM, the organization is pleased to announce this deal with Barron Innovations, which is connected to one of the most prestigious, well-established and highly successful groups in the adult entertainment industry. “The group has held its top position for most of its 15 -year existence,” says Winyard, “and we are happy to have completed this transaction with Barron Innovations. This deal follows on from the ever-increasing flow of significant premium names sales we are achieving now that we are into our third year of operation. It tangibly and irrefutably reinforces the performance benefits of .XXX names for members of the industry.”

Barron Innovations will be placing significant development resources behind creating ultra-high quality destination sites, including offering new and remarkable possibilities to other leading companies, who wish to derive benefit from the strength of these premium domain names. The different options will be launched later this year and in 2015.

“As part of a group which operates leading brands such as ImLive.com and Webcamwiz.com, we tracked the introduction of .XXX closely,” says Shay Efron, spokesman for Barron Innovations. “We have studied the undeniably superior performance of .XXX domains in terms of SEO and conversion rates and decided to make a huge splash by acquiring the very best keyword generic names available. We evaluated SEX.xxx, the flagship domain, and decided it has the potential to became the leading brand in the entire adult industry, so it was an obvious part of a very large deal.”

“We look forward to enjoying the benefits of ICM’s unique Domain Matching Program, which gives .XXX holders an opportunity to secure matching .XXX domain names in .PORN, .ADULT and .SEX,” says Efron. “And we would like to use this opportunity to thank Stephen and the rest of the ICM team, who made the negotiation process a very pleasant experience.”

About ICM

ICM Registry, headquartered in Florida, is the registry operator for the .XXX TLD (Top-Level Domain) approved by ICANN in 2011. ICM Registry has recently been successful in its applications for the .PORN, and .ADULT TLDs, which are expected to launch in 2014, and hopes to gain the .SEX TLD in 2015.

About Barron Innovations

Barron Innovations was established in order to promote premium .XXX domains and turn them into top adult industry brands. The company is using independent resources, as well as the expertise of other leading adult industry companies, to provide consumers around the world with the best possible opportunities to enjoy a unique online experience. The company is connected to a 15-year old veteran group in the adult entertainment industry that operates leading brands such as www.imlive.com and www.webcamwiz.com, as well as other leading adult entertainment brands. Barron Innovations offers well-established companies new and exciting ways to take part in the creation of high-end quality custom sites using the premium .XXX domains, which are part of this agreement.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

5 COMMENTS

  1. Buyer will get also matching .porn, .adult, .sex and other nTLDs, based on ICM Registry matching program. Should owner of sex.com be worried about this competition..?

    Besides of some premium adult gTLD/nTLD(s), I see almost no value in this new gTLD program.

    • Good point I didn’t think about. I wonder if buyer will get those right away (as soon as they come out).

      Would make for a great test to see which TLD performs better in terms of search and social sharing.

  2. “About Barron Innovations

    Barron Innovations was established in order to promote premium .XXX domains and turn them into top adult industry brands.”

    This seems like nothing more than a big promotion for .XXX and the Registry. It’s unlikely any fresh money changed hands.

  3. Sex.xxx sold for 3 million but the 39 other names sold for $51,000 each. Would they have bought Sex.xxx for 3 million if it was sold by itself and not included in a package deal. Doubtful. I think this is an easy way to prop up XXX values.

  4. @ The Truth,

    The group in question is PussyCash and you can find out about them here: (NSFW) http://www.xbiz.com/articles/169389
    they are one of the largest and loges established operators in the Adult Business.

    They obviously had their reasons to wish to put these names in a new special corporate vehicle, which we would not be privy to.

    @todd
    Yes i believe they they would have.

    each and every name came directly from our premium price list which is publicly available and the names sold for (or very close to) the published price.

    FYI, in the agreement there were names @ $200,000 and at @ $185,000 and the 42nd and lowest priced name on the list sold for $2,960 with 6 of the names under $10,000.

    So , all in all a decent spread.

    We are securing a constant stream of premium orders at or around the asking prices.

    Hope that helps.

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