The MutualFunds.com domain name was the main attraction in the innagural Heritage Auctions (HA) domain auction held at the end of last year. Although MutualFunds.com was not sold during the live segment of the auction, HA’s Aron Meystedt announced that a deal had been reached after the close of the auction, and the domain name was sold in private for an undisclosed amount of money. MutualFunds.com had been owned by Internet entrepreneur Mark Ostrofsky, and it originally had a reserve price of $1 million.
I recently learned who the buyer of MutualFunds.com was, and I also learned the company acquired the singular MutualFund.com in a separate private transaction consummated around the same time. The acquirer is Paul Rubillo, founder of Dividend.com, and he teamed up with a company called Mitre Media on these two domain name acquisitions. According to Rubillo, the purchase prices are both private, but suffice to say the total spent was seven figures. He did tell me that MutualFunds.com was slightly more expensive than MutualFund.com though.
Here’s what Rubillo told me about these two acquisitions:
“I was able to acquire both MutualFunds.com and MutualFund.com at the end of 2013 and have been in development stage work the last few months. I am teaming up with Mitre Media, the company that acquired my Dividend.com company in June of 2012. We signed a JV agreement and both domains are now going to be under the Mitre Media umbrella of financial sites, including Dividend.com, ETFDB.com, MunicipalBonds.com, and more.”
The company intends to develop MutualFunds.com with a goal of replicating the success of Dividend.com. Obviously the focus on this business is the expansive mutual fund space that has many large financial companies competing with various mutual fund offerings.
Buying both of these keyword domain name was a smart decision despite the high cost associated with separate large transactions. BankRate owns CreditCard.com and CreditCards.com, and that defensive move could help eliminate a competitor from entering the same space with a competing offer. I also believe the pair of domain names has more value than the domain names individually, especially given the fact that a business is being built on MutualFunds.com.
I am looking forward to seeing MutualFunds.com grow, and I hope Rubillo keeps me (and all of us) posted.
Good luck to Paul. Dividend.com is a great site. If he develops a similar site for MutualFunds.com, which I assume he will, then the 7 figures he paid for MutualFund.com and MutualFunds.com will be a tiny percentage of the value of the overall venture. It will end up being a great investment.
Thank you so much Jeff! Plenty of work ahead as you know from owning the great domain you have! The entrepreneur in me doesn’t want to stop, so we just put the money right back in and get to work on the next exciting challenge!
Nice scoop Elliot.
Great domain/company JV fit. The Mitre Media guys are in the same building as us. Very focused, very sharp guys.
I even connected them to Marc months before the HA auction because I thought this would be a good fit. They took the long way around but the domain looks like it ended up in the right hands.
Looking forward to seeing this one unfold. Good luck to all involved!
Bill, you’re spot on – great guys! Timing is everything and it’s great to be teaming up with Mitre on this! Thanks for the kind words!
Congratulations Mr.Rubillo.
Thanks John! Plenty of work ahead!
dear sirs…….mutualbenefitfunds.com is available on FLIPPA and it is going very cheap………..
Great article. Gives me more confidence about owning CreditCard.Center and CreditCards.center!
I have always thought that it’s better to own both pl. and s. from an investor’s standpoint and a business standpoint.
Thats great news. We are working on something similar in the Indian space with mutual-fund.co.in
I love this story. A “seasoned stock investor” also is a big dollar domain investor. Imagine if/when all the other stock investors figured it out.
Elliot
Just read your article on the sale of MutualFunds.com
We are divesting of our internet domains:
http://Retirefunds.com
http://Retirefund.com
Wondering if you might like to comment on possible valuations
for these domains.
HP
Retirefunds.com
No, sorry, but good luck with your sale.