40z.com - making sense of internet branding

Drugstore.com acquired $409 million

Walgreens bought drugstore.com for $409 million, and it included other website brands, such as Beauty.com, Skinstore.com, VisionDirect.com.
 
Of course drugstore.com was much more than name, it was a real business, with $456 million in sales/revenue last year. But it started originally as an idea, based on a generic domain brand. And it worked.

Here is what Walgreen's said about the acquisition:
 
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/24/boom-walgreens-buys-online-retailer-drugstore-com-for-409-million/
Walgreens President and CEO Greg Wasson, commented:
“This acquisition offers a unique opportunity that will provide us immediate access to more than 3 million savvy, online loyal customers, and will allow us to move even closer to our existing customers through relationships with new vendors and partners, adding approximately 60,000 products to our already strong online offering. Importantly, drugstore.com’s well-recognized presence in the health, personal care, beauty and vision categories, including such strong websites as drugstore.com, Beauty.com, SkinStore.com and VisionDirect.com, will complement and extend many of our own multi-channel initiatives that have been driving growth in our business.”
Drugstore.com will maintain separate branding of its websites after the merger closes.

InternetBrands.com to be Acquired for $640m

In the news today www.InternetBrands.com is being acquired by Hellman & Friedman for $640 million.

Internet Brands owns and operates 100+ websites, including some interesting developed generic domains:

Autos.com, CarsDirect.com, Loan.com, BusinessFinance.com, Vasectomy.com, CancerForums.net, HealthNews.org, DoItYourself.com, Gardens.com, NursingJobs.org, VacationHomes.com, WikiTravel.org, VetInfo.com, etc.

Interestingly, 40z covered the story of Photos.com, a photography portal which was acquired by GettyImages as a part of their acquisition of Jupiter Media in 2009. GettyImages itself was acquired by Hellman & Friedman for $2.4 billion,  3 months after Getty's acquistion of Jupiter Media, and its flagship portal photos.com.

Ancestry.com successfully IPOs today

Its been quite a while since 40z reported on a dot com IPO, but there was one today. Ancestry.com raised $100 million with a successful offering and began trading on the NASDAQ with the ticker ACOM. A total of 7.41 million shares were sold for 13.50 per share in the intial public offering, valuing the company at $572 million. In trading Thursday, ACOM reached an intraday high of $16.32.

YP.com sells for $3.85 million

Reported in TechCrunch today, someone found the SEC filings for the sale of YP.com to AT&T for $3,850,000.

Why? Its short, it means something relevant to their business as an end user, and it gets traffic. Perhaps more people today finally understand why generic domains can be so valuable, but give Jay Leno a microphone and put him on the street, and I bet he'd be lucky to find one or two. Generic domains I believe are still the internet's best kept secret, even though sales headlines like these are a bit like waving a bright green flag in the middle of the red sea...

Box.net raises $6 million

Remember the story about Mark Cuban funding Box.net with startup capital, to a 21 year old?

Well, techcrunch reports today that Box.net now has 1.4 million users, and has just raised $6 million more from 2 VCs. read more here.

MFG.com raises $26 million

Never heard of MFG.com? You are not alone. Fidelity ventures and Fidelity asia ventures account for $25 million of the 26 raised. Take a look at MFG.com and you'll get the idea. Sort of the ebay for manufacturers. Another indication of how virtual the world economy continues to become... read more here at TechCrunch

2007 domain sales overview

The number of high profile domain sales is on an ever rising uptrend it seems. While the numbers are impressive indeed, they simply pale by comparison to values created when a business is built on a top tier domain, and it monetizes the brand inherent in its internet identity.

Take note, all of you former real estate flippers, Guy.com sold 10/30/07 for $150,000 and was then flipped in less than 2 months for $1,000,000. The secondary market in domains is alive and well!

A few more notable and interesting domain sales among thousands in 07 include:

Seniors.com $1,800,000

Chinese.com $1,120,008

Porn.com $9,500,000

Investment.com $900,000

Melbourne.com $700,000

Cardiology.com $550,000

Rebates.com $500,000

AZ.com $500,000

SportingGoods.com $450,000

Bald.com $400,000

Cowboys.com $370,000

Resume.com $300,000

RealEstate.net $300,000

Table.com $260,000

Walkers.com $175,000

Story of Geni.com

There will be a lot more of this story to follow, I'm sure. Started with $1.5 million of seed capital, within 7 weeks Geni.com got a second round of financing at $10 million, and a 'post-money' valuation of $100 million, with 100,000 registered users. Read the article at TechCrunch. Here is an interview from January with the CEO of Geni.

the story of DMV.org

Founded in 2003, by Raj Lahoti, Raj set out to create the 'Unofficial Guide to the DMV'. Compiling the DMV information in each state, by 2006 Raj built DMV.org up to $11.5 million in annual revenue, and employs 15 people. read more at inc.com. Oh and by the way, Raj is 25.