CentralNic offers financing for fresh TLD auctions as well as working capital
CentralNic will back fresh TLD applicants at auction and provide working capital.
With ICANN’s auctions to settle fresh TLD contention sets coming soon, and applicants realizing they might need more money to launch their TLDs than previously expected, a number of firms are offering funding.
One of those is newly-public CentralNic, which is offering financing for auctions as well as working capital for ongoing operations.
CentralNic by now has clients that have applied for 60 top level domains, but it would like to work with more. Providing funding is one way it hopes to do that.
Financing can come in a number of forms, but CentralNic CEO Ben Crawford told Reglike “we’re absolutely interested in taking an equity position” in fresh TLDs.
The firm raised £5 million in its IPO. That amount of cash alone isn’t enough to back many fresh TLDs, but CentralNic’s investors have deep pockets.
“If the deal is right, we have access to additional funds quickly,” stated Crawford.
Other firms I’m aware of that are willing to either invest in or acquire fresh TLD applications include Famous Four, XYZ.com, and Donuts.
