.Club to be valued at $25.4 million after investment.
The .Club top level domain name registry is raising more funds, and the latest round will value the company at $25.4 million after the investment closes.
.Club previously raised $7.5 million, with about $3.5 million of that in debt. The company is conducting two additional fundraising rounds, both of which are fully subscribed.
The first is a raise from existing shareholders that will effectively convert the $3.5 million of debt to equity.
The second round will be a $3 million equity investment, bringing the total raised to $10.5 million. That round is expected to close in February and will give the company a $25.4 million post-money valuation.
In addition to existing investors, a few strategic investors will participate in the equity round.
.Club founder Colin Campbell told Domain Name Wire that the funds will be used to support a $3.5 million marketing plan in 2015.
Fort Lauderdale-based .Club has the most paid registrations of any new top level domain name, with over 150,000 registrations to date.
Campbell and Chief Marketing Officer Jeffrey Sass will be guests on the Domain Name Wire Podcast on January 5.
Their fully subscribed funding round should put them on a strong footing to launch the marketing campaign. It’ll be those companies that can most effectively market their TLDs that will do best in the changing Internet landscape. I belive the CEO of .Club also bought heavily into Minds + Machines stock very recently as another well positioned company about to launch their own marketing blitz in early 2015.
Really looking forward to the interview. Most interested in knowing how they are educating consumers that Coffee.club, for example, on its product package as shown in Ron’s writeup on DN Journal is a actually website that they can visit?
And for the record I also bought into RightSide recently as well. I am holding both of those stocks. I am bullish on the new gTLDs in general because I really believe this is just the very beginning.
There really are too many hitting the market this year, but that’s OK because a select few will gain some traction and establish a base of users.
We are challenged with several ISP NS, Facebook/Twitter/Whatsapp posts not resolving or recognizing our newly launched AnushkaSharma.CLUB as a Domain/URL it becomes even harder to gain traffic!
With my domain investor hat on, this fund raise makes me more confident in .club. They’re going to spend $3.5M on marketing next year, and they have the cash in the bank to push forward. They’re all in on one domain. Interesting to watch — and participate, even at the trivial level of registrant.
There’s no such thing as one string succeeding, and the others not catching up; when one string succeeds, they all succeed; because, what’s holding them back is mutually shared among them; some may make more money, trade more between domainers; but adoption by the public is the beef; a mechanic will prefer dot mechanic, over dot club; no matter how much dot club kills it, they could never talk a chef into abandoning dot deli, and run a club instead.
If anyone could do that however, it would be the dot club guys.
The 9 major points I postulated/promulgated late last year/earlier this year, still remain the major barriers hindering the adoption of the scheme. If anything, the Registries are more wicked, price-wise, than I anticipated.
Domenclature,
As CEO of .CLUB I couldn’t agree with you more. I can’t see the average chef buying a .club or a mechanic buying one directly for their shop or to identify themselves. I think a .chef or .auto would have better meaning for them.
Now if it was a celebrity chef or a company that wanted to create a community around food or auto services like Nationally-known Chef Johnny Carino who launched goodliving.club or Elite Auto Salon eas.club who are building a small business and a community, the .CLUB name works. I think progressive companies who want passionate customers will consider launching a .CLUB. There are the millions of school clubs, sports clubs, and entertainment clubs who will most likely self select a .CLUB over a .auto or a .chef. Lastly, if the public becomes familiar with an extension like .org, .co, or .com, attaching your brand to it doesn’t become an issue. Our goal is to make .CLUB a global brand that people are comfortable with.
Colin
Actually, i just checked my search again, that chef is featured on goodliving.club — a great blog. The premise holds though where a business, entrepreneur or professional wants to build a community of passionate customers .CLUB is a great extension. Ultimately they will want to cross promote their .com, .chef, or .auto site to drive more business.
@Colin Campbell, thanks for sharing, please allow me, to ask you, why .club held IDN registrations for a while, after GA ? and are you planning support another language besides quasi-Spanish ? ( it, pt, fr ) ?
good for them. I’m not a supporter of TLDs in general, but this is a good success story.
Definitely looks like a dynamite future for the .CLUB…
Early excellent support from management and owners to keep it going strong is definitely good news.
A large range of a potential ‘perfect fit’ business name’s gives the .CLUB a big advantage as the leader of the pack — over many of the other New gTLD’s in or coming to Market soon.
A very good bet for the future and that you can count on in the near future some High School kids taking their new .CLUB Business Public out their on Wall Street…
Look forward to the Podcast !!!
“In addition to existing investors, a few strategic investors will participate in the equity round.” Who are these strategic investors? Other registries/registrars?