I received inbound interest in one of the .IO domains I owned and came across a question I actually haven’t seen before. The person who reached out was trying to convince their boss that they should use a .IO domain, but their boss had never heard of .IO and didn’t know of any companies that used it.
While I know a ton of successful startups branding on .IO I realized that the .IO registry hasn’t really done much to get the word out. The person who reached out to me said they tried searching around the web but couldn’t find a good article highlighting a few solid startups branding on .IO.
So I put together a little list for them of companies that were top-of-mind and I thought I’d share it with all of you as well. If you invest in .IO domains or you’re a startup that’s trying to convince the powers that be that a .IO domain would be a good move, here’s some example you can share, enjoy!
Branch.io – raised $367M, valued at over $1B (read more)
Apiary.io – raised $14.6M, acquired by Oracle
Keen.io – raised $29M, exited to Scaleworks
Card.io – acquired by PayPal (read more)
Castle.io – SF-based security company that has raised $11.6M to-date
As for .IO sales, the prices typically range from low four figures to mid five-figures. A few notable .IO sales are:
Cook.io – sold for $39,750 in November of 2019
Swipe.io – sold in mid-2019 for $68,000
Fluent.io – sold for $8,888 a few weeks ago
And the list goes on. I hope this article is helpful to anyone considering either buying a .IO domain for their brand or selling a .IO domain to a startup. At the end of the day, the data is there, startups are raising tens and in some cases hundreds of millions of dollars and branding on a .IO domain.
If you want to learn more about the meaning behind .IO, 101Domain has a great blog post that does a deeper dive.
