In today’s company focused Domain Movers series on DotWeekly, we see a little smaller list than normal but several big names on the move!
Avora.io appeared to be bidding in the expired domain name auction for Avora.com on DropCatch.com. The CEO’s name is Ricky Thomas and the bidder id of thomasr79 gives that indication. The bid price with a little over an hour left in auction was $2,700 with thomasr79 leading from the get go on January 26, 2018 at 11:13:05 with a $59 bid and proxy bid that kept him in the lead from the start. The auction ended for $9,949 yesterday, February 5, 2018 with thomasr79 winning. Whois records have now updated to reflect and confirm that Avora.io has acquired Avora.com.
The domain name had been registered since November 16, 1998 prior to expiring and was owned by Invista North America S.a.r.l. and registered at Com Laude. Invista is a subsidiary of Koch Industries Inc. and its not clear why they just allowed the domain to expire. It was a great catch by Avora.io to realize this and be in the auction as they got a fair deal in the domain name upgrade from .io to .com! Avora offers data analytic’s.
Dax.com has been sold by Sedo for $500,000 by Sedo brokers Frank Tillmanns and Hao Shen.
SubPLY Solutions Ltd. has acquired Audioburst.com also at Sedo for $3,500. The domain actually sold in 2015 with whois just updating now to show the buyers. This is an ai audio service.
Orchid.net has been acquired by Marksmen out of GoDaddy’s NameFind portfolio for a currently unknown buyer.
De Stickerkoning has acquired PrintCompany.com from Name Administration Inc. The domain name held a buy now of $32,500 at the time of the transaction but the actual sales price is unknown.
Fruit of the Loom, Inc. has acquired CarbonTek.com with the help of CSC Corporate Domains from VirtualPoint.com around August 24, 2017. Fruit of the Loom acquired Russell Athletic (Russell Brands, LLC) who makes the CarbonTek shoulder pads.
Duels.com has transferred out of MarkMonitor to GoDaddy. The domain name was being offered for sale by MarkMonitor on behalf of a client (I think Zynga) but it was not clear if the domain had changed ownership or not. I reached out to MarkMonitor and they confirmed the domain did sell. Whois was (and mainly still is) showing MarkMonitor data but registrant email is now showing Blockchains LLC (Blockchains.com) as the new owner of Duels.com. I think I inquired on the domain awhile back for somebody and I think the asking price was around mid five figures.
Target Brands, Inc. has acquired AskTarget.com with the help of CSC on the drop, after the domain expired and was released from the registry on November 1, 2017.
FN.com which is currently owned by Turner Broadcasting and redirecting to CNN Money is currently PendingTransfer out of CSC Corporate Domains. With a transfer, it can be just about anything and the reason behind the registrar change, but one of those is a potential sale. I’ll keep an eye on it.
Hat Tip to Dave for the suggestion on the new title style.
Avora.com the company paid let’s say $10K in expired auction, guarantee you he didn’t think he needed to pay that to win it, he was probably thinking $1-2K, second highest bidder really pushed him, gutsy to be playing at those levels simply for spec.
@Taylor,
I didn’t expect it to end for nearly $10k either but there are actually a lot of companies who use Avora as a brand name. It only takes one of these other companies to be in the auction with Avora.io and things can heat up pretty quickly. I’m not sure who the second highest bidder was, so hard to say if they were an investor or end user.
I totally agree, but as well know they will not pay at this point $12K+ for such a domain. We all have similar names with handful of end users sitting on them, but they choose to add keywords like spa, or services etc, and pay reg fee.
As JZ said snap, or namejet we would not be talking $10K, we see this from time to time, that is why I say I am sure the high bidder is a bit surprised why he paid so much, but he really had no choice.
Had snapnames caught the domain instead of dropcatch it would of went for a couple grand at most and avora probably didn’t backorder it anywhere. dropcatch most likely told them about it.
thomasr79 was after the domain from the beginning. He was the first backorder and he placed it on Jan 26.
Totally agree dropcatch is full of little phucks who keep poking, and poking, who would want to get stuck with this at $10K?
At least one CEO got education on domain valautions
I think Avora is a nice brand name. A CEO end user with a vested interest in the Avora brand and multiple competitors for the same brand around the world picking up the dot com for $10,000 USD is a very smart buy. He has now locked in the Avora brand name for his start up company and no other Avora-branded company around the world can claim it or take it away from him. All those competing Avora companies will all have to settle for lesser domain names or have to rebrand. That’s priceless.