Maple App Upgrades to Maple.com

I miss living in Manhattan, primarily because of all the food options that aren’t available to me in the suburbs. I read an article in Wired about a new dining option in New York City called Maple, and it looks like the startup wisely secured the Maple.com  domain name last month.

Customers of Maple can order a meal via the app, and the high quality meal will quickly be delivered. Making this service unique, Maple  does not have a restaurant for diners to visit, and deliveries are set up based on the location of the order rather than the time placed. Maple’s co-founders (David Chang of Momofuku, Caleb Merkl, Akshay Navle and William Gaybrick)  have experience with food, technology, and logistics. All of these skills  help to make Maple a unique dining option in Manhattan.

When the New York Times published  an article about Maple in November of 2014, the company had been using TryMaple.com for its website. The NYT article mentioned that the company had secured $4 million in funding at that time. I would imagine a healthy portion of the startup’s  funding went to acquire the Maple.com domain name.

I recall inquiring about buying Maple.com early last year, but I never received a response from the owner. Maple.com was registered to the previous domain registrant as recently as March 15, 2015, according to the  DomainTools Whois History Tool. The domain name is now currently registered under privacy protection.

I reached out to the former owner and could not get a comment about the price. I also reached out to the startup, and one of the founders declined to comment about the domain name for this article.

My assumption is that this was a very expensive acquisition, likely well into the six figures or perhaps more. I have no doubt that Maple is going to be a big success, and it was wise for the company to acquire Maple.com at an early stage.