Dubai's Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) is an event focusing on foreign direct investment (FDI) opportunities in growing markets that will draw over 15,000 visitors to the 7th annual meeting Sunday through Tuesday (April 2-4, 2017) at the Dubai World Trade Centre. Sedo will be among the exhibitors at AIM, making their first appearance at a conference of this kind. They will also be the only company presenting domain names as investment quality assets to this influential audience. 

Sedo spokesman Semra Koerner told me, "Our goal is to attract investors who are looking for lucrative assets to the topic of domain trading." Toward that end Sedo will take part in the many B2B and B2C events that are part of AIM as well as being an exhibitor there. CEO Tobias Flaitz, Director of Business Development and Operations Matthias Meyer-Schönherr and Director of Marketing Christian Voss will all be on site to speak directly with potential investors.   

The AIM website describes the event at "the leading global platform aimed at facilitating strategic networking and promoting investments while providing a rich learning experience. It gathers the international investment community, corporate leaders, policy makers, experts, and practitioners from across the globe to discuss strategies on attracting FDI and to connect businesses and countries willing to engage in sustainable partnerships with investors."

Sedo has utilized an extraordinary variety of creative events and initiatives to take the domain "story" to a wider audience and this looks like one that could be especially fruitful.

If you are a regular reader of our weekly domain sales report you've probably gotten used to seeing the name of Dubai-based broker Sharjil Saleem attached to what has become a long line of impressive sales over the past year. The biggest was the $252,500 sale of 0123.com that he co-brokered with Flippa in October. Since then he has helped find buyers for names like 7200.com ($46,000), Shelly.com ($35,000), 5530.com ($31,000) and a number of others. It turns out he was just getting warmed up though.

We've just learned that Sharjil, acting as the seller's broker, has closed a $406,000 deal for Asset.com. When we add that sale (for which we have seen the full documentation) to our charts in this week's report Wednesday evening (March 29), Asset.com will rank as the 3rd highest sale reported so far this year (assuming, of course, that no larger sales come to light over the next 48 hours).  The only ones that have been higher are 01.com at $1,820,000 in February and Refi.com at $500,000 earlier this month. 

Sharjil Saleem

This isn't likely the last big sale you will see from Saleem, who also invests in domains himself.  He is also representing names like Finland.com and DXB.com (the abbreviation for both Dubai and its airport) and several others that are currently listed on his LinkedIn profile.

Asset.com won't be the only new six-figure sale in this week's sales report. Shortly after we published this article we learned that MNG.com has been sold for 520,000 Turkish lira (approximately $140,000) in a deal co-brokered by Uniregistry's Arif Sengoren and AlanAdlari.com. Arif and AlanAdlari.com are both based in Turkey and the name was purchased by a Turkish company. This will also rank among the ten biggest sales reported so far this year (#8 as of today).

Radix, the operator of multiple new top-level domains (gTLDs), has announced the sale of Casino.online to an anonymous buyer for $ 201,250 in an all-cash deal. The registry made the sale through Sedo, the world’s largest domain marketplace and monetization provider. This is the highest reported price paid to date for a single domain in a new gTLD. 

Casino is one of the highest valued keywords on the web and the term "casino online" is the 4th most valuable in the UK according to Radix. With

respect to the the extension, .online was launched in August 2015 and Radix is already able to  point  to several popular developed websites including TNW.online, Lending.online, Africa.online, Geeks.online and Sportwetten.online among others. The company also cites an ICANN survey that ranks  .online number 1 in customer awareness in Europe and countries like Germany, France and Poland vs. all other new domains. The survey ranked .online at #3 in awareness worldwide.

Veteran domain industry branding consultant, investor and writer Joseph Peterson has joined Epik Holdings, Inc. as Director of Operations (Joseph is also a veteran in the original military sense of the word having spent eight years as a Navy submarine officer)! Peterson entered the domain world in 2011 after leaving active duty and had an immediate impact with most first becoming familiar with him through his very well written, thoughtful commentary on industry issues. Initially that came in insightful posts on leading industry blogs, then in 2014 became more formalized when he became a regular contributor at DomainNameWire.com.

At Epik Peterson will oversee process improvements, manage customer relations, coordinate outreach, advise the company and its clients on strategy, and pursue new development initiatives related to naming, online presence, and the domain market.

Peterson said, “What most impresses me about Epik is the team’s readiness to innovate. Here we have a global company with talent spanning Brazil, Europe, and North America; yet they’re surprisingly nimble.  And while most of the domain industry is resting on its laurels, Epik management believes they have a mandate to reshape the entire field.  And why not?  

Joseph Peterson
Director of Operations
Epik Holdings, Inc.

It’s time.  We have emerging markets to bring online, new domain use cases to explore, a longstanding consumer awareness gap to close, and a wealth of digital brands awaiting the right owner. There’s much to be done."

Peterson added, "I’m excited to work once more as part of a team – in particular, to explore new ways to pair names with projects, boost liquidity for domain investors, and broaden participation in the domain market overall. Epik and I were already traveling in the same direction. It just makes sense to get there together.”

Over the past six years in this industry Peterson has been involved in market analysis, branding consultancy, domain portfolio management, buyer-side brokerage, and software projects, in addition to his prolific writing.

Domain broker Kate Buckley, Founder/Principal at the Buckley Media Group, is on a hot streak that shows no signs of cooling off. Regular readers will recall that in the spring of 2016 Kate brokered the $725,000 sale of Rate.com that wound up being one of last year's 10 biggest sales. This year also got off to a great start for her when she handled the $300,000 sale of Advance.com to Advance Publications, Inc. (a privately held American media company that counts Condé Nast among its holdings). 

Today we got word that Kate has brokered yet another six-figure blockbuster, orchestrating the $500,000 sale of Refi.com to a group of mortgage entrepreneurs led by Ryan Herman, Founder and Co-CEO of First Direct Lending. With Advance.com this deal gives Kate two of 2017's three biggest sales to date. 

Ms. Buckley, who represented the seller of Refi.com, told us,  "My client is a private 

Kate Buckley
Buckley Media Group

individual who had the vision to register the domain in the early 90s. He followed the market, knew the value of ultra-premium .coms and, when he was ready to sell, reached out to Buckley Media Group to find the right end user, and negotiate desirable terms.”

Mr. Herman said, “In a changing interest rate environment it’s even more important that we continue to inform and educate customers on how effective refinance loans of all types can be to ensure smart family finances. Customers should have an easy, elegant path to the wonderful companies across the spectrum of loan types that provide exceptional service in both conventional and technology platforms. We feel Refi.com is the perfect domain platform to make that happen.”

Ms. Buckley added, “I worked with the buyers to negotiate terms and facilitate a smooth transaction. They immediately understood the value of the domain. They were a pleasure to do business with in every way, and I look forward to them putting this authoritative, legacy domain to its highest and best use."

The 2017 global domain calendar continues to fill up. Today organizers of India's DomainX conference, Manmeet Pal Singh and Gaurav Kohli,  announced the dates and city where their 4th annual event will be held this summer. The two-day show has been scheduled for 

August 5  & 6, 2017 in New Delhi at a venue that will be named shortly. This will be a return visit to the nation's capital for DomainX. Their 2016 conference was held there last August at the Shangri-La's Eros Hotel. DomainX was launched in 2014 with an event in Hyderabad followed by a 2015 conference that I attended in Banagalore.  

Above: A scene from the 2016 DomainX conference in New Delhi.
(Photo courtesy of Gaurav Jain)

Below: Several 2016 attendees went on a DomainX sponsored visit to the Taj Mahal.

A preliminary list of likely speakers is already up on the DomainX website with that roster to be expanded and finalized, along with agenda details, in the weeks ahead. Seats can be reserved now with tickets priced at a standard rate of $150 (as I write this early bird tickets have been temporarily discounted by 25% to $112.50 but that could change at any time when the limited allotment runs out). A small ticketing service fee (under $5) is added to the ticket price.

In another DomainX related note, a one-day event that the organization had planned to stage in London on April 9, 2017 has been cancelled due to an unexpected extended illness that Mr. Singh is now recovering from. If that event is rescheduled for a later date we will let you know.

The 9th annual edition of the Domaining Europe conference is now just 66 days away. The show will be held in Germany for the first time with the 2017 event running May 14-16 in Berlin at the Steigenberger Hotel Am Kanzleramt.

Conference Founder Dietmar Stefitz started the show in his beautiful hometown of Valencia, Spain where the first seven events were staged. People came from all over Europe (as well as overseas) to participate but last year Stefitz  decided it was time to 

start taking the conference to the people by staging it in other high profile locations across the continent. That "new" tradition began with the 2016 event at The Hague, Netherlands and will continue in Germany - a perfect location given than country's status as a world leader in the domain industry with many leading companies and investor/developers located there. That also makes Domaining Europe 2017 a can't miss event for us, so I will be in Berlin to cover it all for you. 

Many new details about the show agenda, speakers and sponsors have just been posted to the conference website. It all gets started with an exhibition and informal networking from 3pm-8pm in the hotel foyer on Sunday, May 14. Two full business days follow with a variety of keynote speeches and panel discussions highlighting the schedule. Speakers from around the world - to name just a few (and with more still to be announced) - will include Joe Styler (GoDaddy, USA), Jeff Sass (.CLUB, USA), David Warmuz (Above.com, Australia), Jackson Elsegood (Escrow.com, Australia), Ilze Kaulins-Plaskacz (ExcellentDomains.ca, Canada) and of course many top names from Europe like Axel Kaltz (ParkingCrew, Germany) and Rolf Larsen (.GLOBAL, Norway).

In addition, super moderator Braden Pollock from LegalBrandMarketing.com (who was profiled in our November 2011 Cover Story) will be making the trip over from the U.S. to again serve as the  conference moderator.

The NamesCon conference has big plans to expand the brand far beyond their annual event each January in Las Vegas where the most recent one - the 4th in the series - concluded January 25, 2017. It is a natural progression since the conference was acquired by World Hosting Days (WHD) last year. WHD already stages popular conferences for the hosting industry around the world and already have the infrastructure in place to incorporate the closely related domain shows -  via NamesCon - into those international events. 

As we told you a couple of weeks ago, NamesCon will hold a one-day event in Mumbai, India on May 19, 2017. More details on that have now been released in a newsletter from the conference. NamesCon India will be held in conjunction with a WHD-India conference that will take place at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Mumbai May 18-19. The NamesCon India web page notes, "NamesCon India will be jam-packed day with three keynote presentations and six informative sessions where industry experts will discuss the hottest topics and the latest advancements in the domain industry. Plus, the event will close with one of our renowned domain auctions!"

Image from Bigstock

Verisign released their latest quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief, covering the 4th quarter of 2016, this week. The administrator of the .com and .net TLDs reported that approximately 2.3 million domain name registrations were added to the internet in 4Q-2016, bringing the total number of domain name registrations across all top level domains to approximately 329.3 million as of Dec. 31, 2016. That is a 6.8% jump year over year and a 1.8% rise from the previous quarter.

Verisign's .com and .net TLDs had a combined total of approximately 142.2 million domain name registrations at the end of 4-2016. That  represents a 1.7%  increase year over year.  126.9 million of those were .coms (the world's most popular TLD by far) and 15.3 million 

were .nets (a number that maintains that extension's place as the 2nd biggest gTLD in the world). .Net is the 5th largest TLD overall, trailing three ccTLDs - .cn .tk and .de in total registrations (many discount .tk because it is given away at no charge).

Total ccTLD domain name registrations were approximately 142.7 million at the end of 4Q-2016, an increase of approximately 4.3 million domain name registrations - a gain of 3.1% year over year (if you take .tk numbers our, the ccTLDs were up 6.9% year over year).

As of Dec. 31, 2016, new gTLDs totaled 25.6 million domain name registrations, which represents 7.8% of total domain name registrations worldwide.

Verisign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide internet users throughout the world with statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry.