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TLDH to invest in rival new gTLD names

Kevin Murphy, January 14, 2014, 03:29:07 (UTC), Domain Services

Top Level Domain Holdings is to launch a new company, backed with a $2 million starting pot, devoted to investing in second-level names in rival registries’ new gTLDs.
TLDH chairman Fred Krueger told us today that the new company, which will be found at SecondLevel.co, will start buying up attractive names as soon as new gTLDs start going into general availability.
The move is one of several announcements TLDH is making — focusing on the registry, registrar and buyer levels — at the NamesCon conference here in Las Vegas this week.
SecondLevel.co will take money from institutional investors, buy up new gTLD second-levels, and return 70% of the profits to its investors on a quarterly basis if and when the names are flipped, Krueger said.
There are no plans to monetize the names in other ways yet, Krueger said. He doesn’t think new gTLD domains are going to get enough type-in traffic to exploit, for example.
It sounds like there’s going to be a bit of bargain-hunting going on here.
Other new gTLD registries have of course already slapped premium pricing, and in many cases premium renewal fees, on the names they consider most attractive.
When TLDH buys up such a name it will effectively be saying that it reckons its competitor undervalued the name.
That said, rivals such as Donuts have claimed that they’ve priced their premium names at levels that will still allow flippers to make a profit, so maybe there’s an opportunity here.

Comments (3)

  1. This is an affirmation in their faith in the secondary market for new gTLD, whose success would reflect the success of the new gTLDs initiative.

  2. Jim says:

    No type in traffic.
    Traffic leakage to .com.
    If .com is a competitor of any of these that suffer from traffic leakage, watch out. They can almost sit on their ass and reap your work.
    I have .com domains that get thousands of daily uniques from traffic leakage just because the original company would not pay 50K for the domain at launch. Now, they have made that amount and multiples of that in some cases just from clicks.
    This really is some funny sh*t. I’ve seen this paly out many times since 1995.
    The new TLDs are the best thing to ever happen to .com investors. They will get so rich off this.

  3. Xavier Lemay says:

    We canot ad value to something that is not there yet. It will take at least 5 years to see if it worth spending money on new gtlds.
    I won’t invest in new gtlds. I think its the time to see a plane of speculations crashing. Domain names ar here to stay. Com is the Winner. There is new opportunity to take a look at that will change the world. I prefer to stand up and walk away from the croud. The owners of the new gtlds are making money on you. Stop listen them. Open your eyes and turn tou head. You may find something bigger than something that already exist!

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