So TechCrunch published an article today about the number of U.S. startups that have reached Unicorn status in 2024. For those that not familiar with the startup world, a Unicorn is a privately held company that is valued at over $1 billion and has not been acquired by a third party or listed on the stock market.
49 companies in total and 24 are using a non com.
As one would expect in 2024 AI is one of hottest industries that is producing Unicorn startups. 8 companies on the list use a .ai. Interestingly Elise Ai uses EliseAi.com. Elise.ai is just a parked page.
3 companies on the list are using a .xyz and not a great one word .xyz. You would think with the kind of money these companies raised that they would get a better domain name. MonadLabs.xyz, someone has the .com listed for sale for around $3k. Farcaster.xyz and EigenLayer.xyz.
Safe Superintelligence Inc is using SSI.inc. The company was founded by Open AI co-founder Ilya Sutskever.
3 .io on the list, 1 .org surprisingly, 1 .shop, 1 .dev, 1.foundation, 1 .net, 2 .co, 1 .dev, 1 .health.
On the .com side it’s interesting that 24M Technologies has been around since 2010 and raised $87 million and operates on 24-M.com, I think you have to try to get 24M.com as well. It’s for sale on Afternic and no it’s not mine or anyone I know, at least I don’t think I know them, I did not check whois. But there is an Afternic landing page.
Zūm has raised $350M and uses RideZum.com. Zum.com looks to be a developed Chinese website.
Monad also has Monad.xyz. Looks like some else has Monad.com.
That’s well predictable in the past. The number of catchy .com domains is limited and most of them are in use, so new startups have to use alternatives. But undeniably, investing in them now is yet to become a fast way of making profit. I myself invested in some of them, by the way.