Demand Media Raises Another $100M

Firm has raised $320M to date.

As stated by a number of blog and media notes today, domain name firm Demand Media has raised an additional $100M in capital. That brings its total to a staggering $320M. Demand Media was founded by former MySpace executive Richard Rosenblatt.

The firm owns eNom, the second largest registrar (by names registered), as well as a sizable portfolio of good domain names. The firm also markets the .TV domain name, which it is trying to “rebirth” following its initial failed launched. Demand Media tries to apply social networking tools to domain names.

Some of Demand Media’s sites include Run.com, Trails.com, and Grab.com.

As stated by legend, Rosenblatt got the idea for the firm following reading “Master of Their Domains”, a 2005 story in now defunct Business 2.0. In November 2006 Rosenblatt stated he wanted to take the firm public in 2007 at a market cap of $2B.

The numbers don’t make much sense to me. If you’ve raised $320M and go public with a market cap of $2B, the return to early investors isn’t that great. I assume that recent investors bought in at a very high valuation.

I’m not fully bought in to Demand Media’s stated mission, counting applying social networking to thousands of domain names and the .tv domain, but I’m sure there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that I don’t know regarding.