CentralNic Signs Deal with Domain Venture Partners
CentralNic announced today that it has signed an agreement with Domain Venture Partners, the financing arm of Famous Four Media.
You can read the press release after the jump:
“CentralNic plc (AIM:CNIC), the internet platform business which derives revenues from the worldwide sale of internet domain names, today announces that it has signed an agreement (“agreement”) with Domain Venture Partners’ new investment fund, DVP II, whereby the Company has been selected to be the registry service provider for certain registries acquired by DVP II; meaning that CentralNic’s platform will be used to enable their domain names to be purchased through domain name retailers (“registrars”) worldwide.
Domain Venture Partners (“DVP”) recently launched DVP II as an investment fund, with a target size of US$400 million, to acquire Top-Level Domain registries, some of which are already live. DVP (through DVP I) invested in 60 companies which applied for licenses to operate generic TLD registries, and has become one of the largest registry operator groups.
Commenting on the agreement between CentralNic and DVP II, Ben Crawford, CEO of CentralNic said: “This presents a fantastic new opportunity for CentralNic, and we are delighted to be working with the market leading professionals within the banking, legal and technology fields that support DVP II. This agreement not only fits well with our stated strategy to increase the inventory of Top-Level Domains carried by our platform, but also confirms CentralNic’s position as market leader in providing registry services. In addition to the potential to accelerate top-line and bottom-line growth for CentralNic, our experience and expertise in promoting registries will complement Domain Venture Partners’ already formidable Sales and Marketing capability. We look forward to working with the team at DVP II as both companies seek to expand our presence in the market.”
“CentralNic is an organisation that shares our passion to develop and transform the global domain name market place”, said Charles Melvin, Chief Operating Officer at Domain Venture Partners. “We are delighted to welcome CentralNic as a preferred technology back-end provider. We have been impressed by CentralNic’s experience in operating successful registry back-end services as well as its proven ability to market and help distribute domain names in a strategic and creative manner.”
JD.com Acquired for $5 Million?
A year ago, JD.com was acquired by Jingdong, a company that bought the domain name to re-brand from 360buy. However, the price for the deal was not disclosed.
George Kirikos reported that the domain name sold for as much as $5 million:
“I was browsing through EDGAR, and noticed that JD.com’s SEC filing had a section for their balance sheet on page F-37 [of the SEC filing] that referenced domain names. As of December 31, 2011, they recorded 2,621,000 RMB for domain names, but that rose to 36,032,000 RMB as of December 31, 2012.
If you look at the WHOIS history, Alexander Lerman owned the JD.com domain name on December 31, 2011, but by the end of 2012, it was owned by the Chinese company (the actual WHOIS change took place on 2012-06-12).
Thus, one can infer that the change in the Chinese company’s balance sheet allocated to domain names between the end of 2011 and the end of 2012 was mostly due to the acquisition of the JD.com domain name. The difference between the two years of 33,411,000 RMB, using a rate of 0.15695 to the US dollar via the chart at XE.com for the exact date of June 12, 2012, would equal USD $5,243,856.
Of course, there might have been other domain name acquisitions to account for the change in the balance sheet, but I’d bet that USD $5 million is a good estimate for the transaction value of the JD.com domain name.”
Considering that Facebook paid $8,5 million for FB.com and that IG.com sold a while ago for $4,7 million, it’s not so hard to believe that JD.com changed hands for $5 million.
Nominet : Entries for Nominet Internet Awards 2014 Now Open
Nominet, the company behind the .UK internet infrastructure announced that entries for Nominet Internet Awards 2014 are now open.
You can read the announcement after the jump:
“17th February 2014: Nominet, the company best known for running the .uk internet infrastructure, is calling for entries to the Nominet Internet Awards 2014.
Now in their eighth year, these awards celebrate the best Britain has to offer online and are open to businesses, charities, individuals and public and private sector organisations. They highlight those who drive change, do good, foster economic growth and contribute to the overall success of the UK internet.
An independent panel of judges will select winners in five categories:
Innovative internet business
Online skills and training
Making the internet a safer place
Doing good online
Digital innovation in public services
The closing date for entries is 25th April 2014. Finalists will be invited to attend the Nominet Internet Awards Evening, a black-tie event, and category winners will be profiled in our Guardian Media Network partner zone.
“We want to celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit of the organisations and individuals using the internet in dynamic and inventive ways,” Nominet CEO Lesley Cowley said. “Whether they help a small community get online or make an impact on a national scale, we look forward to receiving this year’s entries and being inspired by the great things they’ve achieved.”
Previous winners range from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, developers of the single-board Raspberry Pi computer used to promote computer science in schools, to Oii My Size, a youth-led project that raises awareness of how teenage boys should approach and speak to girls with respect.
For more information, including how to enter, please visit http://nia.nominet.org.uk.”
Nova.com Hits $60,000 in SnapNames 2014 Kick Off Premium Auction
The auction for Nova.com domain name is now live on SnapNames. The domain name received a $60,000 bid and still has 17 days left until the auction will close.
The auction features 95 premium domain names and ends on March 6th at 3:15 pm EST.
Seven other domain names received bids :
ConcreteTruck.com Current Bid $1,000
GirlCode.com Current Bid $1,000
iLeak.com Current Bid $300
Legalizingpot.com Current Bid $300
Pattern.info Current Bid $300
Pursues.com Current Bid $300
Xets.com Current Bid $300
Other interesting domain names included in the auction are :
Top.com
Hear.com
Soft.com
4K.com
Clicks.com
Bop.com
Demo.net
Accommodation.co.uk
Temp.co.uk
3DPhotos.com
HomeInvestment.com
You can see the entire inventory and place your bids here .
NCC Group Acquires the Rights to Operate the generic Top-Level Domain .Trust
NCC Group has recently acquired the rights to operate the new gTLD .Trust from Deutsche Post. Deutsche Post obtained the rights to utilise the new gTLD through ICANN’s new gTLD allocation back in 2013 .
The price of the deal was not disclosed at the time of writing this article.
NCC Group will use .Trust for their new Artemis Internet security service,according to Rob Cotton ,NCC Group Chief Executive.
“We are on course to launch a secure and trusted internet environment in our next financial year. .trust provides us with our first gTLD for our Artemis internet security service. We are also confident of signing up our first customers for this exciting and innovative service shortly,” said Rob Cotton.
NCC Group is still in the contention stage with its application for the new gTLD .Secure.
“Having more than one gTLD for the Artemis platform will be very beneficial and we remain fully committed to the ICANN allocation process for .secure,” added Rob Cotton.
