An old name in the domain name business gets a big cash infusion.
Website marketplace Flippa has raised an $11 million Series A round over a decade after it was founded.
Flippa lets people buy and sell online businesses, and was doing it since before it was cool. I visited the company’s headquarters in Melbourne way back in 2012.
The service has had its ups and downs over the years. And like any business this age, you can expect some business model changes over time. Flippa added support for domain name sales a while back and even made an ultimately unsuccessful acquisition of a domain brokerage.
These days, there’s lots of competition in the website brokerage business. Much of it is in the form of brokerages and M&A groups specializing in online businesses.
Flippa has a laundry list of action items for its new cash, including expanding beyond websites and apps. In a blog post announcing the raise, CEO Blake Hutchinson states, “We will soon help you to trade ANY and EVERY digital asset type of ANY size. ” One would assume that could include another crack at the domain name aftermarket.
I am currently experiencing shady things with my drugsology.com sale at Flippa. I own 2200 domain names and I have reason to believe that GoDaddy and Namecheap are manipulating my portfolio and setting me up to fail. I paid $300 to Flippa to boost sale of dugsology.com group of domains but they didn’t want to produce the evidence of promotion. I told Flippa about my concerns and I asked if they see any obstacles in place that would block or prevent my domain sales? Are there any “failed verification or compliance” or anything such? They don’t want to answer. Instead of answering they refunded my $300 but that is not only sabotage on top of the sabotage but discrimination as well. I did not ask for premium boost promo refund. They are hiding something. Furthermore, there was a buyer that said that he wants to buy drugsology.com (.org etc) group for $30k via Flippa, but Flippa removed him as well as his conversation and by doing that blocked my sale. I lost $30k.
I complained to Flippa and I included CEO Blake in CC. I also made official complaint with ACLU and elsewhere. I also tried to list my business and home services domains for sale at $2,500.000 but I am not allowed to do so. Now I read how they claim to help small businesses and treat them same as big business but my experience is quite the opposite. It’s like someone is blocking any possibility for me to survive and make any sales.
When I ask questions they don’t want to answer. Subpar service and treatment of me and my minority owned small businesses. Pattern.
T.H. Sergio Milosavljevic