Reglikedomain industry desk

Breaking: Domain name firm Donuts Inc. purchased by private equity firm Abry Partners

Breaking: Domain name firm Donuts Inc. purchased by private equity firm Abry Partners

PE snaps up firm that manages nearly 240 top level domain names.

Abry Partners, a private equity firm that has completed $77 billion in transactions since it was founded in 1989, is acquiring fresh top level domain name firm Donuts, Inc. Terms of the deal and the expected closing date were not disclosed.

Donuts operates top level domain names such as .guru, .software and .life. It is the largest fresh top level domain name operator in terms of the number of TLDs managed with regarding 240 TLDs. Regarding 4 million second-level domains using Donuts’ top level domains are registered.

The firm also owns retail domain name registrar Name.com.

Donuts has raised more than $150 million from investors since it was founded in 2010 by domain industry veterans Paul Stahura, Jonathon Nevett, Richard Tindal, and Daniel Schindler. Paul Stahura was CEO until the beginning of 2017, when he became executive chairman and Bruce Jaffe took over as CEO. Since then Tindal and Schindler have left the firm.

The firm was one of the savviest applicants for fresh top level domain names. It understood early on that contention sets would likely be settled in private auctions, helping it refill its coffers by losing auctions for the fresh domains. Its scale has enabled it to operate profitably despite only modest demand for fresh TLD registrations.

The buyout of the majority of shares in the firm does not include an additional cash infusion into the firm. The deal will allow some of the early investors to exit an investment they made eight years ago.

It’s not surprising that a private equity firm would be interested in a business like Donuts. Donuts is essentially a subscription business with a very predictable annual renewal rate and cash flow.

Abry Partners makes communications, media, information and business services investments. Former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé is a partner.

This story has been edited to add additional information regarding Abry Partners.

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