CB Insights.com which covers the startup/ venture capital markets published an interesting post entitled “The Non-Dotcom Bubble: The World’s Most Popular Startup Domains Other Than .Com”
The story contains a chart tracking the most popular Non-.Com domain name extensions for funded tech companies from 2010-2015.
Of course since the first new gTLD didn’t launch until 2014, none are reflected in the chart.
Unfortunately as you will see later, CB Insights is very confused about new gTLD’s program in general, but does highlight some newly funded tech company’s which are using a new gTLD’s domain name.
“With a flurry of new domains being made available by ICANN, startups have increasingly seized the opportunity and flocked to alternative domain suffixes.”
“We used the CB Insights database to analyze the trends in startup domain suffixes over time, such as the rise of the .io suffix.
“Traditional .com domains still dominate amongst the more than 25,000 tech companies funded since 2010, with 20,000+ companies choosing a .com domain for a 81% share of all suffixes”.
Personally I was surprised that the .ly extension was not higher on the chart:
Here are some other observations CB Insight had about Non-.Com domain extensions from 2010-2015:
- The .co domain saw the largest spike, with a 93% jump in the number of new companies being funded with that domain suffix between 2013 and 2014.
- Both .io and .in have seen steady growth, and have already reached all time highs in 2015 in terms of registrations for funded companies.
- .net domains, while having the most funded tech companies in total since 2010 (after .com), has slowed significantly in growth, with only 61 companies being funded with that domain name through mid-August 2015.””
CB Insights also published some finding that seem to include new gTLD’s staring in 2012, although no new gTLD’s launched until 2014.
Actually CB Insights seems pretty confused when it comes to new gTLD’s:
“The number of unique domain suffixes attached to startups in a given year saw a huge jump between 2011 and 2012, primarily due to ICANN approving URLs in “any language or script” in early 2012. Since then, there has still been a steady climb in the number of unique domains available, and startups have taken advantage.”
Of course we know ICANN approved the new gTLD program in 2011 not 2012, and the first new gTLD didn’t exist until 2014.
CB Insights goes on to say that there “were 116 separate domain suffixes used by startups this year through mid-August 2015, almost double the amount in full-year 2010.”
Well of course, since hundreds of new extensions launched starting in 2014.
The post includes the company formerly known as BioDiaspora on its 2012 list under is current domain Bluedot.global but obviously didn’t change its name until 2014 when .Global launched.
Also it seems CB Insights thinks the .Pro domain extension is a new gTLD although it launched 10 years before in 2004.
According to the chart it seems to think that the country code domain extensions (ccTLD’s) of .om, .gg, .dj, .ae, bi, .sr were somehow part of the new gTLD program approved in 2011, which of course they are not.
However there are some notable mentions of company’s using new gTLD’s in 2014 and 2015.
Here is the list:
Select Newly Funded Domain Suffixes
Year Suffix Select Companies
2012 .global, .om, .gg, .pro bluedot.global, pinion.gg, bad.gy, cpac.pro
2013 .dj, .ae, .bi, .sr plug.dj, propertyfinder.ae, bbs.bi, hairdres.sr
2014 .limo, .life, .works, .today loup.limo, league.life, weave.works, celuv.today
2015 YTD .ventures, .world, .soy, .pictures entangled.ventures, myeye.world, bevisible.soy, folio.pictures
