Building a business on system.com
This data firm uses a great domain name.
Firm database Crunchbase is a resource I use on a daily basis to find information regarding domain names and the firms using them. Following years of using the service, there are few firms using a premium domain name that I haven’t at least noted.
Still, one firm that I haven’t come across on Crunchbase ahead of is System, a software firm that caught my eye recently following it disclosed a $12,250,000 Series A funding round.
To me, what is more noteworthy than the Series A funding figure is the firm’s domain name, System.com. Originally registered in 1995, System.com represents one of the best one-word .com domains in existence, and likely a domain name that took great effort to acquire.
System was founded by scientist and entrepreneur Adam Bly, an entrepreneur with a wealth of career experience behind him by now thanks to the creation of his own successful data analytics firm, Seed Scientific, followed by a stint as Spotify’s VP of Data.
While a request for information was ignored, I believe that System has existed behind the scenes for a number of years, but it has only recently been unveiled to the public. It certainly seems as though Bly and his team purchased System.com well in advance of the firm’s public launch.
As stated by WHOIS history, the domain moved to Google’s registrar under WHOIS privacy protection in mid-2018 and then moved to Amazon’s registrar in early 2019. Archive.org reveals that System.com held a “coming soon” page until mid-2020 when a beta version of System appeared, suggesting that Bly purchased the name while the firm was very much in stealth mode.
The buyout of premium domains by firms in stealth mode is something that does happen often, especially if that stealth firm has a funding source and has a specific need to own its exact-match .com ahead of launching to the public.
There is no doubt that System.com is a valuable domain, and it’s an asset to the firm that uses it, but is it intrinsic to System’s day-to-day activities? As of writing, System.com hosts a site detailing System’s product offering with a prompt for interested users to sign up for its service. System.com, then, is the firm’s shop front.
Still, Bly revealed in an Instagram interview (5:57) that later this year, System.com will become even more notable to the firm as it offers users a search functionality so that visitors can use System.com as a search engine for data.
Bly and the System team showed excellent foresight in securing System.com ahead of launching.
