Top Level Domain Holdings just annoucned they have raised an additional $10 million (approximately £6.6 million) conditionally raised from institutional and other investors and directors for new gTLD auctions and to be used for launch and marketing of .london.
“”The Board of Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (AIM:TLDH.L), is pleased to announce that the Company has today conditionally placed 110,375,276 new ordinary shares (the “Ordinary Shares”) through N+1 Singer as broker to the Company at a placing price of 6p per Ordinary Share (the “Placing Price”) with institutional and other investors and certain directors to raise US$10 million before expenses (equivalent to approximately £6.6 million at current exchange rates) subject to admission (the “Placing”).
“” The Company intends to use the Placing proceeds to provide additional working capital and in particular, to provide additional funds for the Company to resolve contention sets, including participation in private or ICANN-sponsored auctions of contested strings, where another applicant(s) has also applied for the same new generic top-level domain (“gTLD”) as TLDH. ICANN has indicated that its auctions, which will occur if applicants cannot resolve contentions on their own, will begin in November 2013.
“”As previously announced the Company has already arranged a conditional funding facility for one contested gTLD string application of up to US$15 million (repayable solely through a gross revenue share) and is progressing discussions on similar non-recourse debt funding facilities for other contended gTLD applications.”
“As previously announced, the Company also expects to enter a joint venture with Uniregistry, the only competing applicant for .country. ”
“Of the 88 applications TLDH either wholly owns or is serving as a registry service provider, 22 are uncontested (16 wholly-owned by TLDH, six by clients); 11 are currently in contention with a single other applicant; 17 with two other applicants and 38 in contention with three or more.”
Fred Krueger, Chairman of TLDH, commented:
“Given the size of our portfolio of contended applications, today’s funding, together with our other resources, places us in a strong position to participate in auctions and to significantly enhance the value of our portfolio of uncontested gTLDs which we expect will produce early revenues in the Sunrise Period – the inaugural event in each launch.”
The Company also intends to use the Placing proceeds to support the launch and marketing of .london, which the Company currently expects will be in Q1 2014. The Company is well underway in setting up core registry operations in Dublin, with additional operations being managed out of London.…