7 Companies that Bought Ultra-Premium Domains Before Launching

Securing an ultra-premium domain name prior to launching a company is a surefire way of attracting early interest in your company. It’s a move that few entrepreneurs make, but here are 7 ventures that launched on a premium domain name.

Cart.com

The e-commerce platform Cart.com shows what can happen when two experienced entrepreneurs join forces to create an impactful brand on a category-defining domain name.

Omar Tariq, the former CFO of Blinds.com, joined forces with experienced investor and founder Jim Jacobsen to form Cart.com, a platform that helps to scale e-commerce brands by providing vital services from order fulfillment to growth marketing.

The duo secured Cart.com for an undisclosed fee months before its unveiling in November 2020. That meant that the platform and business were built directly onto this supreme domain name.

You’ll also notice that the company is named Cart.com, rather than simply Cart. This is an intentional move that harnesses the power of the domain name in a similar way to Tariq’s previous company, Blinds.com.

It’s safe to say that Cart.com has been a success so far. The company has raised $383 million in disclosed funding to date and according to Bloomberg, Cart.com increased revenues by 400% between 2021 and early 2022.

Wealth.com

Wealth.com is a domain name that has been featured on the MediaOptions blog in an On the Record chat with Wealth’s executive chairman, Rei Carvalho.

Wealth, which operated on Wealth.com, is an estate planning service for the 21st century that provides a holistic view of your assets, including the likes of cryptocurrency and NFTs.

Carvalho secured Wealth.com for his estate planning startup more than a year before launching it to the public.

The domain has played its part in drawing attention to Wealth’s business, with the company raising $16 million in seed funding and making headlines in several tech news outlets.

Writer.com

For an AI writing assistance service, there are few better brand names than Writer. What’s better is that Writer’s co-founders, May Habib and Waseem AlShikh, secured the Writer.com domain before launching.

Writer came to the market in 2020 with $5 million in funding and followed that up with a $21 million funding round a year later.

The company has attracted users from major businesses such as Deloitte, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Embed.com

Embed is the first of two financial companies on this list that secured a phenomenal domain name prior to launching.

Financial companies that operate solely or predominantly online are prime candidates to secure an ultra-premium domain name thanks to the trust, longevity, and security that these assets offer.

Embed, an infrastructure provider for financial markets, started to develop on EmbedFi.com before managing to acquire Embed.com for an undisclosed fee.

The company came out of stealth mode in 2021 operating on Embed.com and soon disclosed $80 million.

Column.com

The second financial company that I’ve highlighted here is Column. Column is a nationally chartered bank built for developers.

It’s a project created by Plaid co-founder William Hockey and his wife Annie, fully funded by the billionaire couple. Column has been a long time coming, with plenty of time spent on the brand behind the scenes, including the $50 million purchase of a bank.

William and Annie also purchased Column.com to host the project, with the deal for the domain closing in January 2021, over a year before Column opened its doors to the public.

Mojo.com

Entrepreneur Marc Lore is famous for Jet.com, founding the company that Walmart subsequently bought for $3.3 billion. After Jet.com, Lore’s streak of building companies on ultra-premium domains continues.

First, Lore founded food delivery company Wonder, then Lore co-founded Mojo. Mojo is best described as a stock market for professional athletes, allowing fans to buy and sell shares in a player based on their on-field performance.

It’s a novel concept that requires an experienced hand to make it successful. Fortunately, Lore has three co-founders to help him there. Lore has partnered with baseball legend Alex Rodriguez, former Walmart SVP Bart Stern, and Quidsi co-founder Vinit Bharara to launch Mojo.

Mojo, naturally, operates on Mojo.com, a domain the company acquired for $1.25 million in January 2021, securing the domain from Elevate Credit, Inc.

Remote.com

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a move towards distributed teams operating remotely. One Statista survey suggests that the majority of respondents are currently working remotely, with 29% permanently working remotely.

Remote working brings with it challenges such as business compliance, taxes, and more. Fortunately, several companies are tackling these issues, one being called Remote.

I need to discuss the domain I own!

Remote, founded in 2019, offers a fully international service for hiring and paying remote employees. It has operated on Remote.com since the beginning, acquiring the domain name and associated assets such as the @Remote Twitter handle from a business that used to operate on the domain.

Remote.com has been centric to Remote’s success, hosting the company’s website and dashboard. Remote has raised $496 million in funding, with its $300 million Series C round valuing the company at more than $3 billion.