Pureplay new top level domain name company hits profitability.
Minds + Machines (MMX) announced today that it was profitable in 2017, the first year that it has been profitable as an operating company.
H2 2017 billings totaled about $10 million, up from $5.6 million in the first half of 2017.
Renewal revenue in 2017 was $5.6 million. With fixed operating costs reduced to below $5.5 million, that means the company’s recurring revenue exceeded fixed operating costs.
The release says that the company is continuing its strategic review:
The strategic review continues to progress and the benefits of consolidation in the industry remain. Whilst the longevity of the discussions has been at times frustrating, it is hoped that the process can be brought to a successful conclusion by the time of the full year results which are expected to be released in April 2018.
This suggests that the company might make an acquisition or be acquired by then. Or, it could do nothing.
Congratulations to the team.
Excellent Result!
Congratulations to the MMX team. From my observation, Toby Hall and his team are bringing more entrepreneurial energy to the new TLD economy than the rest of the new TLD registry industry combined. The debate is not about COM or Not-COM. The debate is about creating a reason for the world to care about domains at all and not follow the path of the telex and fax as addressing schemas. The future of the industry is about vertical and geographies mapped to useful platforms. The registrar channel by itself will not carry the water, at least not initially. MMX grasped that and courageously went out to find the business, not simply resorting to cheap 1st year domain registration deals or making tactical use of Market Development Funds to goose numbers. The end-game for new TLDs is about adoption in the wild, not domainer speculation or defensive brand protection shakedowns. 2018 is shaping up to be a decisive year for the new TLDs. With ~140,000 development-grade registrations in new TLDs in our portfolio, we at DigitalTown have placed our bet. See you at NamesCon.
Let’s wait for the full financial reports as these new tld companies tend to have a skewed view of what “profitable” means.
Perhaps a split would favor the company sale, like selling the Geo TLDs to Neustar or CORE, and selling the more generic TLDs to Afilias.