As we draw to the end of 2020, you’ll notice that the DNJournal chart currently shows just one seven-figure sale for the year. In 2019, DNJournal charted six sales at $1 million or more. The last time that DNJournal charted just one sale at $1 million or more was in 2005 when Fish.com sold for $1,020,000.
There may well be some softening of sales at the top end of the market due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that certainly hasn’t stopped big names from selling this year.
There are more sales happening behind the scenes that are never revealed. So, here in part three of my mini-series, I’m looking at more domains that likely sold for seven-figures or more in 2020 in those behind-the-scenes transactions. If you missed the first two parts, you can still read part one and part two.
IQ.com
In 2014, Salesforce acquired the IQ.com domain name to slot into their multi-million dollar domain portfolio that includes Social.com, Desk.com, and Code.com. The company used the name to redirect visitors to SalesforceIQ, a service that has now been retired.
Back in February of this year, a month before SalesforceIQ’s services officially closed, Salesforce sold the IQ.com domain to IQIYI S&T Co., Ltd of Beijing, for an undisclosed fee.
IQ.com now redirects to IQIYI.com, which offers a service similar to Netflix, it seems.
There’s no indication of a sales price, but a publicly listed company such as Salesforce who knows the value of a good domain name and isn’t in a position where it desperately needs to sell digital assets is very unlikely to sell IQ.com for under seven-figures.
As one of the best two-letter .COM domains in existence, I’d be surprised if this was anything less than a seven-figure sale. In comparison, NIQ.com was reported to have sold for a six-figure fee in 2020.
Aura.com
Acquiring Aura.com represented a significant upgrade for Aura, a digital threat protection platform, which Crunchbase lists as being founded in 2019. Aura used AuraCompany.com before making the move to Aura.com.
At the time of the acquisition in July, there was speculation that the asking price for Aura.com was $1.25 million. It’s certainly not out of the question for the seller of Aura.com to achieve the full asking price or close to it, especially when selling to a well-funded end-user.
Pink.com
In November, a domain transfer caught the eye of Jamie Zoch, who tweeted the news to his thousands of followers. In short, the valuable Pink.com domain moved to corporate domain registrar MarkMonitor, signifying that the name sold.
A couple of days later, I reported that Pink.com had been acquired by Victoria’s Secret, and was being redirected to Victoria’s Secret’s PINK brand page.
Frank Mardian of MapleDots.ca disclosed that the asking price for Pink.com was $1.2 million in early 2020, providing proof of a conversation between himself and the-then owner.
Invest.com
The Invest.com domain has sold for more than $1 million on a couple of occasions. In 2008, it sold for $1,015,000, and in 2014, it reportedly sold for $5 million.
This year, the name was due to be auctioned off in a private auction with a minimum bid requirement of $12.5 million, although Sedo has Invest.com listed for an $8.8 million “buy now” price.
Regardless, the name has now transferred to SafeNames, a corporate registrar based in the UK, signifying that the name has indeed sold. The new owner is listed as Koober Investments Ltd, a
With the history of the domain and the apparent expectations of the current owners, Invest.com almost certainly sold for a seven or eight-figure fee.