On Deck Capital, Inc. has acquired the premium generic domain name BusinessLoans.com for an undisclosed amount.
On Deck Capital was founded in 2006 and went public in 2014 with about $520M in total funding from 9 rounds according to CrunchBase.
So why would a company like On Deck want to invest in an asset like the premium domain name they acquired? It’s what they offer! It’s who they are! They offer business loans to small and medium sized companies!
Naturally, people use search engines to find what they are looking for. Often, they do not know a specific brand, they only know what they want/need. This often results in a web search like, business loans. Owning the generic domain name BusinessLoans.com, not only prevents another competitor like Cabbage from using it against On Deck, it allows On Deck another opportunity to “own” the search results for that important term. Save ad spending and offers a lot of options.
Advertising. What makes more sense to a potential customer looking for a business loan, other than BusinessLoans.com? Nothing! Well, maybe BusinessLoan.com, the singular, but interestingly enough, there is great potential that On Deck has acquired that domain as well.
Although whois records are currently not showing publicly that On Deck has acquired either domain name, both have recently transferred to corporate domain name protection service MarkMonitor, who On Deck uses. Since whois records are generic and do not display who the owner is, I have to use other means to try and figure it out. One of those is the IP Address used for the domain, which just so happens to be registered to On Deck Capital, Inc.
The singular domain, BusinessLoan.com just transferred into MarkMonitor and still retains the old domain name servers, but since the timing is right with the plural domain, I am also confident that On Deck were the buyers of that domain. I like the plural better, because they offer more than 1 type of business loans but it is wise to own both domain names.
In 2013, On Deck also did a domain name upgrade for its main brand. Prior they were using the domain name OnDeckCapital.com but then acquired the more commonly used term to relate to the company, OnDeck.com. They acquired this domain name from domain name brokerage firm Media Options.
Congratulations both to On Deck on these very wise asset purchases and to the sellers of each domain name for having the foresight to own them.
Jamie-
Great find! Always great to see companies that understand the value of premium domain names and their strategic value in using them or keeping them out of the hands of the competition.
Mike
It looks like OnDeck has actually owned the domain for several years.
@Alex,
Thanks for pointing that out! I did notice this article by DomainInvesting from 2013 now that you mention it: http://www.domaininvesting.com/ondeck-launches-businessloans-com/ I noticed the movement into brand protection service MarkMonitor, who OnDeck recently started using. With whois information private, it can be hard to tell sometimes when they acquired the domains.