According to a Press Release Donuts Inc, applied for 307 New gTLD’s by far the most of any company that has announced so far.
At last report ICANN had received over 1,900 new gTLD applications, so Donuts, Inc. would represent around 15% of all applications.
The 307 applications means that Donuts spent $60 Million just in application fees payable to ICANN.
Donuts Inc. is going to use Demand Media, Inc. (DMD) for its back end registry services.
Donuts, Inc. also said they have raised over $100 Million dollars from notable sources, including:
· Austin Ventures
· Adams Street Partners
· Emergence Capital Partners
· TL Ventures
· Generation Partners
· Stahurricane (Stahura’s investment fund)
“Stahura said Donuts is ready to raise additional funding should circumstances warrant. “Our investors are very optimistic about both this opportunity and our plans,” he said.”
Chris Pacitti, General Partner of Austin Ventures. “Donuts is going to be a formidable presence in Internet namespace growth.”
“Donuts was founded by Paul Stahura, Richard Tindal, Jonathon Nevett and Daniel Schindler—four industry veterans with extensive experience in registry and registrar operations and industry governance, and who have successfully launched TLDs, built industry-leading companies, and brought value and choice to the domain name marketplace.”
“The company has rounded out its executive team with three hires, all effective on May 1, 2012, and each with domain name industry experience:
“Kevin Wilson has been named Chief Financial Officer. For almost four years, until January 2011, Wilson was CFO for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN, the industry’s policy development organization), and previously held financial leadership positions in varied industries, including Internet, technology, financial services, real estate and others.
“Mason Cole, an executive from SnapNames and Oversee.net and a leader in ICANN policy development, has been appointed Vice President of Communications and Industry Relations. Cole is a 12-year veteran of the domain name industry.
“Alvaro Alvarez, formerly with the firm of Perkins Coie LLP, Donuts’ outside counsel, has been named Vice President and General Counsel. Alvarez has worked with Donuts since its incorporation in 2010 and on domain industry matters since 2007.
Donuts, Inc. previously announced that is was applying for 10 new gTLD’s.
The date for the big reveal of who applied for what extension has been set by ICANN for June 13th. While some applicants have come forward outing themselves on the extension they have applied for, Donuts, Inc. is not one of them.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall : -)
Now they can buy donuts.com
Three words: “Spray and Pray”
They use Donuts.co
Story now covered by TechCrunch.com
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/05/donuts-launches-with-100m
Question: How do you build a million-dollar company?
Answer: Raise $100 million and wait. 🙂
Well, assuming they applied for some competitive strings, that is a lot of money to waste on application fees.
I seriously doubt this company is going to be a player for .web, .home, .music, etc. That application fee is per extension, if they get it or not.
If they are not competitive strings, then they are also not worth $185,000.
The fact that they spent $60M on this, and use Donuts.co when Donuts.com is not even developed basically tells me what I need to know.
Brad
Buydonuts.com is available for sale. You might see it in the next Brannans auction also. But what an odd name for a company. Donuts…. Is it April 1st?
Wow – what an incredible “Bottom Floor” opportunity for all those private equity investors – just like the facebook IPO. If you put the tit out there – people will suck on it.
“The fact that they spent $60M on this, and use Donuts.co when Donuts.com is not even developed basically tells me what I need to know.”
@ Brad
It tells me that they are not .com zombies and that they are able to go forward with an open mind when new opportunities present themselves. 🙂
–
Agreed this outfit is taking a radical posture.
How to get to 307?
Maybe they’re doing first and last names plus geo destinations.
Maybe they’re doing some coke too.
ojohn –
“it tells me that they are not .com zombies and that they are able to go forward with an open mind”
– Are you the new “Robert Cline” spokesman for all the new gTLDs – i.e. Internet Ghetto ?
I may have found a new use for Dognuts.com 🙂
“Wow – what an incredible “Bottom Floor” opportunity for all those private equity investors – just like the facebook IPO. If you put the tit out there – people will suck on it.”
True, these new .whatevers are speculation on a Grand scale.
Most the banks are near total collapse, the western economies are pretty much in the gutter, 45 million Americans on food stamps and huge unemployment in America and throughout Europe.
Millions of domains already parked with for sale signs on them, does the world really need thousands of new domain extentions at $xxx,xxx + each?
Just another speculative .bubble waiting to pop IMO
.whatever 🙂
@ BrianWick
No, Just a neutral observer who understands the new era of Internet that goes past .com
The truth is that many of the new gTLDs will probably have to struggle to survive, but a few will become very successful and thus will produce a real challenge to the already established extensions. If you cannot understand this then you either are heavily invested in .com and are scared of the future or that you have your head in the sand and prefer not to see the storm that’s coming our way in the near future.
–
Donuts.Bankrupt might be one of them?
Brad@
“I seriously doubt this company is going to be a player for .web, .home, .music, etc.”
Usually i agree with your posts,not this time.
Go to donuts.co and read TEAM,maybe you will change your opinion about this people.
Like “ojohn” said, that fact that they bought .co tells me that they are open minded that things are changing in the internet industry.
They are making a move to alter the organizational architecture of the internet. TLDs for virtually every category of occupation ,hobby, interest, topic, language . . etc.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Demand is taking a marketing angle, with its content engine.
I went to the website, so full of ish, and then some,,,
this is how they are marketing new tlds… How many people can own chicago.taxi… how many people can own chicagotaxi.com, 1 and 1, why not use that example,
chicago.taxi, or chicagotaxi.com?
Example:
theater.tickets, or broadwaytixnyc.net?
chicago.taxi or windycitytaxiinc.com?
@ Tom, all the best or meaningful terms will be kept and sold off privately by the registrars just like .co was so its irrelevant to the the majority of people placing a backorder if they are thinking they will get it for reg fee.
All they are doing is helping the registrars pick the most desirable names.
Spending $60 million on fees for 307 applications for new gtld’s?
That is just crazy, IMO, I can’t imagine them getting a good return on that.
Though to these investors, $60 MM probably isn’t a huge amount of cash to invest.
I just can’t see the demand out there for all these new gtld’s.
“They are making a move to alter the organizational architecture of the internet.”
@ Tom G
In a few years when ICANN drops the application fee from 185k to lets say something like 5 or 10k and after the registries and backend operators iron out all the existing issues, getting a new gTLD will become a lot cheaper and a lot easier and that’s when we are going to see the real change taking place. Once the most popular brands, geos, and keywords are operational as new gTLDs then people will be able to intuitively combine the left of the dot with the right of the dot and find what they are looking for.
–
Agreed the best terms will be hoarded, It will take the power and money of the domainers to give these guys some working capital if and when the general public comes to terms with these new extensions, so not really sure how this is going to pan out.
‘If and When’ ?
Every artist in the world, that really considers themselves an artist, is going to register their name under .ART.
Everyday people don’t know much about domain names, but they know Who They Are, What They Do, What they Love.
Artists just don’t care what Joe Domainer thinks – they are ARTISTS First and Foremost and will not think about another name for their image on the world wide web.
Same will hold true in many other extensions as people use their domain name as their expression of their identity on the web.
just my opinion – and the opinion of lots of very smart, very rich people – who happened to have made their riches in the domain industry.
Good Luck All
Tom G, very well said and I totally agree with you. Smart people make wise decisions. What Joe domainer thinks is totally irrelevant.
“.co tells me that they are open minded”
– good god – good god – good god – its about making dough not a bunch of rhetoric that sounds good – just like a $500MM Solyndra Solar “open minded” mistake.
Paul Stahura is in the business of selling domains – not whether they ever get used – 2 mutually exclusive businesses – but I am entertained by the naive newbie geniues on this thread – albeit I will still take my antiquated 13+ years .com business model – while they make their trillions 🙂
When the bidding starts on all these new domains that will be available dont be fooled by the actions of those you think are mining for gold but actually are making far more money on the sales of shovels.
Does anyone think that Google is going to move off Google.com to search.google? Anyone think eBay is going to stop marketing eBay.com and start an ad campaign for coins.ebay, with the .com as a redirect?
It will be very interesting to see if adoption grows so frantic, this really moves the mountain in the minds of consumers, or if .com becomes where the big boys are, while .whatever is where the children play, or vice versa.
Ignore everyone’s narratives- the domainers, the new TLD floggers, everyone- and pay attention to what the money does. That’s all that matters. Meantime, I’m still buying .com.
I think a couple will do great, a few of these new gtld will do ok, some will probably fail outright and the rest kept on corporate life support.
In the meantime I think .tv is pretty well hedged against this development, if dot whatever explodes then its the shortest most recognisable – if not then meh it still looks a cool brand for rich media sites. Im sticking to .com and .tv for the most part.
This is great news, really.
The more that get released the more marginal each one becomes relative to the other, thereby causing a reverse domain flight the tried-and-true extensions of .com, .net, .org, and .tv .
Confusion alone will cause the flight back to “quality”. People may finally see the value in great domains like they never did before.
Yes, Tom, agree that the .art owner will sell a ton of domains. A truly outstanding extension .art could be a massive gateway of quality sites.
For this extension I could see a control freak high brow ownership team attempt to block undesirable website owners. Not sure what ICAAN says about this. If you did screen domain buyers for artistic talent and charge high renewal fees it might be a profitable business model. A giant online art show with snob appeal and bragging rights if you are allowed into the club.
L, likely that the machines will in the future resolve tlds “naked” (without h-t-t-p fwd slash colon w-w-w syntax) in the address box in the browser.
So Google.com will eventually become .Google…
When will the Big Boys Dump ICANN ?
It is beyond surreal to think $100 million dollar players are not making deals and cutting ICANN out of the game.
Why are people attracted to the Waiting Game ? and the Artificial Scarcity ?
What happens if the entire market changes and ICANN has nothing to lure people ?
with 100, some are going to get approved. and some will probably succeed. but will it be worth the investment?
it’s a big gamble. this is exactly what icann wanted. domainers ready to gamble.
no gamble on icann’s part. money in the bank. no refunds. sorry.
It really doesn’t matter how “$uccessful” the new tld’s will be. Google will be using .google on the very first day they can. They won’t spend a single dollar to market or promote it and it will change the way the world uses the Internet instantly. The next generations will not be afraid to quickly migrate to an entirely new online paradigm like we dinosaurs were/are. This was never about the birth of new tld’s, it is about the death of an existing structure. Google and it’s children will set the pace and shape of change, not over zealous investors, registries or ICAAN. They are only the doormen (albeit receiving hundreds of millions in tips) Furthermore, typing out a specific URL will matter very little to one’s search/destination if only because the kids will rarely even use a keyboard.
“They are only the doormen (albeit receiving hundreds of millions in tips) ”
It is fascinating how the “doormen” have argued against a monetized network yet set themselves up to be the receiver of the Big Tips. 🙂
It is hard to believe that one “customer” has to tip 307 times at $185,000 EACH in what is claimed to be a Non-Profit Cost-Recovery system.
As more and more Reveals occur it should now be clear what the [[insiders]] have been seeing in the Applicant flow. [[THEY]] clearly must be annoyed that the **WRONG** Applicant mix is emerging. [[THEY]] have very strange values, few can fathom and those values shift with the money flow (and cheese trays).
In the case of DONUTS, ENOM, Demand Media, etc. there is also likely a huge concern on ICANN’s (hidden) legal staff’s minds that the **existing** Class Action Lawsuits will open this can of worms. [Translation: Where has all the money come from ? Were people’s domains taken and auctioned to enrich Registrars ?]
How many Registrants has ICANN harmed with their policies ? Who has profited ? and NOW who is playing the next phase of the ICANN Game ? with those proifits ?
Who is Responsible and Accountable ? Clinton ? Bush ? Obama ?
Here is the hype & firm “stroke” on Money.com yesterday:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/05/technology/donuts-domains-funding/index.htm
you raise a good point stree kid. google can indeed make new gtld’s well known if they promote .google
but will they?
google owns heaps of googley domains. but people still use google.com first and foremost.
google doesn’t try to promote all their alternative domain names. (though they do promote all the google properties: youtube, mail, news, etc. in the search results)
why would they try to promote .google over google.com?
you are right that google are the ones who could market the new gtld concept to the unwashed masses. because nearly all internet users pass through google.
if google start using .google
what do you have to type in to url bar to get to .google?
search.google
Beckstrom had an opportunity to make his mark shoring up the internet and making it safe, paving the way for legitimate businesses to counteract unemployment, but his administration will be known as throwing logic out the window and increasing opportunities for id confusion.
Dude are they going for .whatever or .foothemoney