In the August edition of the Sedo Sales Roundup, I’m looking at five domains that sold at Sedo to see whether we can understand why the names sold for the prices they did.
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FastFood.com – $65,000
This domain was sold during Sedo’s GreatDomains auction, where it held an asking price of between $50,000 and $100,000. The name achieved a $65,000 sales price, so that’s towards the lower end of the advertised range. It was part of a GreatDomains auction in 2020, but it didn’t sell.
On the surface, FastFood.com for $65,000 may seem like a bargain price to pay for an industry-defining domain name. However, practically speaking, the domain may have development limitations.
FastFood.com was acquired by Pareto Holdings, a Miami-based startup incubator created by Shutterstock’s founder CEO, Jon Oringer. The incubator seems to invest in a wide variety of companies, including several in health-related niches.
While FastFood.com currently redirects to Pareto’s homepage, could the company have acquired the domain on behalf of one of its investments?
Polity.com – $36,000
Private equity company Abed Group scooped up Polity.com for $36,000 this month. Technology-focused startup accelerator Abed is based in Barbados and according to LinkedIn, the group was only founded in 2020. Notably, Abed does own Abed.com, so they’re certainly no strangers to a great domain.
Abed Group is founded by H.E. Gabriel Abed, the Ambassador of Barbados to the UAE, who has an active interest in blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, and NFTs, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Polity is defined as “a form or process of civil government or constitution,” and it seems the domain may have been acquired with this definition in mind. As of writing, Polity.com hosts a landing page featuring a quote from Aristotle about democracy.
Given Abed’s interest in new digital technology, could Polity.com be developed into a project that combines democratic governance and blockchain, for example? Few actual details about Polity.com are available at the moment.
GoldenSection.com – $20,000
GoldenSection.com, which sold for $20,000, seems to be a direct upgrade for a company called Golden Section Technology, which currently operates on GSTDev.com. Founded in 2012, Golden Section Technology works with start-up and growth-stage SaaS companies to accelerate software development.
The company is based in Texas, but has a presence in the UK, too.
The GoldenSection.com domain had been listed at Sedo for some time before it was purchased, with a 2018 Archive.org capture revealing that the domain carried a $20,000 asking price back then. It seems, then, that Golden Section Technology paid the $20,000 asking price for the name. A worthy upgrade from GSTDev.com.
Joy.io – $20,000
This is one of the latest in a long, recent line of five- and six-figure .io domain sales. Joy.io was acquired by Joy, a reservation system for bars, restaurants, hotels, and event spaces. The company was formed in May 2021 and quickly invested in a professional, short domain name.
As with GoldenSection.com, Joy.io was listed for sale at Sedo with a $20,000 asking price. The company matched the owner’s asking price. From my research, it seems Joy.io wasn’t sold by a domain investor, rather the long-time owner of the name.
PointCapital.com – $17,713
PointCapital.com has been on sale for a long time. According to DomainIQ’s WHOIS history, the domain was listed for sale on Uniregistry’s marketplace in mid-2013, where it stayed until 2017 when the domain began pointing to a Sedo landing page.
From what I can tell, it was the same owner, which goes to show that it can take an incredibly long time to attain a sizable sale to the right end-user.
In this case, the right end-user was Point Capital, a Swiss investment company that was founded in 2018. The company has been using PointCapital.ch, the local ccTLD for Switzerland, but the group secured PointCapital.com to secure their brand.
As of writing, PointCapital.com redirects to PointCapital.ch, but this may change in the future.