According to a Press Release today the Media development fund Iris Capital, increased its investment to the domain names acquisition company Domain Invest SA, by 6 million Euros.
Iris Capital, as well as two private investors decided to increase their investment by respectively 6 million Euros, and another 182,000 Euros, in a move to show their continuing support to DI SA.
They will join the existing investors BIP Investment Partners, Société Nationale de Crédit et d’Investissement, the company’s management team as well as individual investors, as some of the biggest funding entities to DI SA.
Iris Capital spokesperson said “We are very excited to be backing a European leader in this field. Domain names are inherently profitable assets whose market value is consistently rising. Under the care of this very experienced and motivated management team, we are confident the company will continue along its very successful path.”
DI SA, one of the world leaders in domain names investment, now holds a capital of about 18 million Euros, enabling the forward thinking company to freely pursue its domains acquisition policy.
DI SA invests in high value domain names, establishing a presence in several key sectors by owning coveted Internet real estate. Its portfolio includes more than 100,000 domains, each of them attracting a huge number of visitors every month and generating high income by advertising and affiliation. As most of the traffic is highly qualified, advertisers are willing to pay higher amounts to secure space over DI SA extensive database; therefore DI SA does develop some websites by monetizing potential domain names with targeted websites and advertising pages.
The company owns high performing domains such as www.whiskey.com, www.credito.it or even www.werken.nl, extremely high value names attracting thousands of visitors every month organically and generating large advertising revenues.
“We are thrilled to welcome Iris Capital on board. Besides funding further growth of the company we believe that Iris Capital will contribute immensely valuable input to the management, given their background and expertise in working with IT and Media companies”: explained Markus Schnermann, Co-Managing Director of DI SA.
DI SA was founded 2 years ago by Xavier Buck, the actual Executive Chairman, as well as Managing Directors Markus Schnermann and Frederick Schiwek, to be one of the biggest players in domain names.
These Internet pioneers have already managed to position DI SA at the forefront of the domain names investment market both in Europe and globally, and with this last capital increase, the company will certainly continue on its highly successful path.”””
Nice to see venture capital money still coming into the space.
Great to see the faith that this capital company has put in the domain industry as well as Domain Invest S.A.
Congrats to both sides.
Aron
Excellent press release–the more coverage the better.
As they say- domains are the best investment.
Interesting post … Whiskey.com seems to be the only credible domain name worth that kind of investment.
whiskey.com? wtf can you do with that domain besides brand a drink product. Bad choice of investments, which will lead to failure.
Looks like they just fishing for all types of domains. Good luck.
I met Xavier over the years at Domain Conferences and he is a great guy and deserves the best.
Thanks, Jim
Congratulations to Mr. Buck and Mr. Schnermann,
investing into domains is more and more recognized internationally and will definitely help all of us who are involved into domaining, whether it is buying/selling or developing.
Again, my congratulations to DI S.A. and it´s founders.
Regards
Considering that “Iris Capital invests €6M Euros in DI SA Raising the Domain Name Company Capital to €18M” – what they have done with €18M? The right one person team can do wonders with $1M or even a small a fraction of it. High growth demanded by VCs is extremely risky for the founders.
But for VCs the risk is just part of the game. In addition there are some assets that can be liquidated. They must they have the way to get rid of the original founders. Does their traffic cover domain portfolio registration costs? Can their 100,000 names be liquidated to recover this amount of investment? It would be interesting and valuable to jointly do more analysis.
Canadian company GeoSign took $160 million in VC funding in March 2007. InMarch 2008 some of us read the the news “How GeoSign” Blew $160 Million”. Well, they did not lost this money but some fraction of it and their opportunity was not realized as planned.
Ho hum
I’ve seen this movie before.
Domain investors with too much money buy a hotch potch of disparate assets (domains) with no real plan other than live off PPC income
They need to refer to all the other pigs (IREIT etc) that got slaugtered
VCs should NEVER invest in domain holding cos. Low reward, high risk.
At best it is like holding a bond: income stream (PPC etc), maybe capital gain going forward
It will NEVER produce ROI for the VC like an investment in a new software/hardware start up that win a massive contract “tomorrow” with a government for, say, 50,000 licenses..
This will end in tears
@John Doe
“whiskey.com? wtf can you do with that domain besides brand a drink product. Bad choice of investments, which will lead to failure.”
In the right hands, ” Whiskey.com” could be a multi million dollar generating business.
Why? Don’t think like a domainer. Think like Salesman.
If you dont’t think “Brand” and put a “S” on the back of the word. Then you would be able to market “Brands” which could be a exploding revenue channel.
Just my 2 cents.
Sorry John Doe,
i meant jack ford regarding my last comment.
I guess it’s the “Whiskey” getting to me. 🙂
I love how the negative comments are anonymous and the positive ones are from real people.
Side note: the DomainInvest website claims they own 100,000 domains, so their exact strategy and dealings aren’t know to us.
It’s not like they ONLY have the 3 domains listed in this article.
Clearly this company knows the difference between investment quality domains and Pigeon Shit.
“I love how the negative comments are anonymous and the positive ones are from real people.”
@Aron yes, anonymous is synonymous with Pigeon.
I’m not one to categorize people 🙂 we’re all regular guys and girls. 😀
“I love how the negative comments are anonymous and the positive ones are from real people.”
I totally disagree with you.
Oh, is that a negative comment?
🙂 That reminds me of a Brigan Regan skit:
“I’m sorry I’m not taking any more questions…”
“Well when will you……
OHHH — that’s a question.”
I’ll try to find the video 😀
@another domainer, you miss the point. if you disagree thats great, then at least have the salt to put your name behind it. it shows a lack of confidence
@Aron you are too kind 🙂
“then at least have the salt to put your name behind it. it shows a lack of confidence”
I’ve said it before and I will say it again. My statments stand on its merit rather than if we are buddies or competitors.
And, I have more respect for Michael than to steal his traffic by trying to promote my own websites.
Ha, everyone has something to say. VC’s are not all dumb, and if they invested, then there must be a profitable angle they have seen, and hope to continue to see.
Just met the DI guys in Vancouver and they are stand up individuals with a VERY solid portfolio of domains.
Congrats to all. Very glad to see more VC money coming into the industry.