Once in a while you will see them on a drop list, the domain of a company that was once an internet high flier.
So is the case of NextMonet.com a site that was founded in 1998 and was a Forbes.com “Best Of The Web”, and reportedly raised at least $23M in capital raised, with investors like CMGI and Knight Ridder.
NextMonet.com was described as:
“A leading publisher and direct marketer of limited edition fine art and source of original art. Founded with the goal of making fine art more accessible, the Company offers one of the largest collections of original and limited edition fine art for sale in the world. NextMonet’s three sales channels, catalog, website, and wholesale, cater to consumers, corporate customers, the trade, and selected art gallery and frame shop retailers.”
According to The Wayback Machine the last update to the site was in July 2008.
So the answer to the question how for the domain?
Today it sold for $2,300 on NameJet.com
I think that comes to exactly 1/100 of 1% of the money reportedly invested in the company.
Nice post …
Can anybody list a company that was started with less that $2000.00 and ended
up being worth more than $23,000,000 ? 🙂
MostWantedDomains.com 🙂
…starting from $16,000,001 of course… 🙂
I have another one: 1stbuy.com: company raised approximately $3.8 million during 1999 and early 2000, see http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr16700.htm.
NextMonet.com is not even particularly a valuable domain name on its own. Names like that were/are available in adundance which reinforces that any domain can be branded (without enough money behind it). As became eventually evident, the business model is even more important when dealing with non-premium domain names, ex. NextMonet.com.
Embee, the Era of the Pre-Bubble Burst really has no relevance to today’s domain market. Capital was pouring in like hedge fund orgasms to companies owning a domain name and a website that “looked good”, and even just based on the domain itself with NO business plan or any direction. The Bubble bursting in 2000 forced the domain industry, and any company wanting to use the internet to learn how to succeed. Their survival, embarrassingly, was based on…
*ahem*
The Porn Industry
The processes of monetization of internet visitors was defined by x-rated sites. I’m sure Rick Schwartz can personally back up my statement here.
This is a true fact.
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no clear info has been released, but, I believe that, office.com has been sold to Microsoft for a price much higher than $23M (so, it’s the real post-bubble domain names’ record price)
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Nice 🙂