SEC filing suggests GoDaddy paid about $80 million total for .club and .design top level domains.
GoDaddy’s latest quarterly filing with the SEC sheds new light on how much the company paid for the .club and .design top level domains.
In April, the company announced it was acquiring MMX’s (Minds + Machines) strings as well as .design and .club. The amount of the MMX deal was pegged at $120 million.
In its Q1 filing this year, GoDaddy noted that it entered into four acquisition agreements in April for a total of $220 million, and that one of the deals had closed:
In April 2021, we executed four acquisition agreements for aggregate consideration of approximately $220.0 million in cash at closing, subject tocustomary adjustments, and deferred cash payments totaling approximately $13.0 million. One of the agreements also includes a variable earn-out payment of upto $12.0 million based on the achievement of specified performance conditions. On April 12, 2021, we closed one of the acquisitions and expect the remainingacquisitions to close in the second quarter of 2021, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
Last week, the company filed its second quarter report, which narrows the range paid for the TLDs to $200 million:
In April 2021, we executed agreements to purchase a number of top-level domains (TLDs) for aggregate consideration of approximately $200.0 million in cash, subject to customary adjustments, and a variable earn-out payment of up to$12.0 million based on the achievement of specified performance conditions. In July 2021, we completed a portion of these purchases for aggregate cash paid at closing of approximately $77.0 million. We expect to complete the remaining purchases inthe third quarter of 2021, subject to regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
Given that the MMX portion was $120 million, this suggests that GoDaddy paid approximately $80 million combined for .club and .design.
Cogito Ergo Sum says
Have you guys considered re:amaze which they acquired in April, too?
Andrew Allemann says
They referred to four acquisitions in April, one of which was probably the $20M above $200M. See the Q1 blockquote.
snoopy1267 says
.Club was raising funds on a $25million valuation in 2014, so if it sold for approx $40million that is a pretty poor return compared to most assets over that time frame (6% per year).
Andrew Allemann says
I don’t know all of the details of that funding round, but valuations can be deceiving. There could have been liquidation preferences in that round that gave later investors the first cut of proceeds. That said, 2014 was a bullish time for new TLDs, and I think we mostly agree that they have not lived up to many of the bullish expectations.
Regarding the sales price, I suspect .club was more than .design.