Donuts

Donuts is the large registrar of new domains of the top level (top-level domains or TLDs) founded 2010 by veterans of domain business Paul Stakhura, John Nevett, Richard Tindel and Daniel Schindler.

As of September 2018, the company's headquarters is located in Kirkland (state Washington,). USA In addition, Donuts also has offices in Denver (Colorado, USA) and (). Dublin Ireland

History

2021

Ethos Capital acquires controlling interest

The investment company Ethos Capital officially announced the completion of the acquisition of a controlling stake in Donuts Inc. from the American private investment company Abry Partners^[1] This was announced on April 1, 2021 by the Coordination Center of the national domain of the Internet (CC).

The investment company had previously tried to acquire for $1.135 billion the Public Interest Registry (PIR), which manages the.ORG domain area, but the transaction, already agreed between the parties, was blocked about a year ago by ICANN Corporation. After that, Ethos Capital probably switched attention to other domains, the registrar of which is Donuts. The first information about the upcoming transaction appeared in January 2021, now the purchase has become a fait accompli.

Ethos Capital sees us as a good partner in maintaining our mission to ensure reliability, security and stability of work, as well as in achieving success. We associate great expectations with the ability to effectively use the experience and knowledge of the Ethos Capital team at this stage of our development, "said Donuts head Akram Atalla.

Acram and all Donuts employees built a company that became one of the representatives of the industry, demonstrating stable organic growth over many business cycles. And we are delighted with the opportunity to join forces with them, "said Eric Brooks, one of the leaders of Ethos Capital.

The source said that the second head of Ethos Capital, Fadi Shehade, was previously president of ICANN Corporation. And the second person in the ICANN hierarchy was at that time Akram Atalla.

Purchase of management rights for four more domains

Donuts has announced another expansion of its domain portfolio. This was announced on February 20, 2021 at the Coordination Center of Domains.RU/.RF (CC). Donuts acquired contracts to manage four top-level shared domains. All these domains, according to the Coordination Center, can be designated as financial -.MARKETS,.FOREX,.BROKER and.TRADING. They were delegated to Boston Ivy, which planned to attract a wide range of financiers to its domains, but definitely did not succeed.

In total, there are less than 4 thousand registered names in the.MARKETS,.FOREX,.BROKER and.TRADING domains. Prior to this, Boston Ivy sold another of its "financial" domains. CFD (an abbreviation meaning contracts for difference - "contracts for price difference") to the registrar ShortDot. And on her last remaining domain -.SPREADBETTING (a term meaning one of the forms of play on stock exchanges or sports betting) - the buyer could not be found, and the company simply notified ICANN that it refused to use it, thus leaving the domain market.

In total, the number of new top-level shared domains managed by Donuts is approaching 300, the Domain Incite resource reported.

2020

Closing of Afilias Domain Assets Purchase Transaction

Donuts, which owns a large portfolio of new shared top-level domains, announced the closure of the acquisition of the domain company's assets, Domain Afilias Name Wire said. This was reported on December 30, 2020 in. Domain Coordination Center.RU/.RF The purchase amount is still undisclosed. More. here

Acquisition of Afilias domain assets

On November 23, 2020, the Coordination Center of the National Internet Domain (CC) announced that Donuts has agreed to acquire Afilias domain assets, which acts as a registry for more than 20 common top-level domains and is the technical operator of more than 200 domain zones. More details here.

2018: Acquisition by Abry Partners

On September 5, 2018, the registrar of new common top-level domains (TLDs) Donuts, announced an agreement with the American private investment company Abry Partners, under the terms of which it will acquire a registrar. The amount of the transaction and the deadline for its completion are not disclosed.

As of September 2018, Donuts manages more than 200 TLDs. The agreement with Abry Partners was an important milestone for the registrar, which is in a period of active growth and development. So, over the past 18 months, Donuts has acquired the Rightside registrar, whose portfolio has 40 top-level domains, launched the BL.INK short-link platform, as well as the Relevant Name Search (RNS) domain name search service for partners.^[2]

Donuts expects to continue development with the support of Abry Partners.

It is noteworthy that Donuts is not the first large domain company acquired by an investment company. Previously, Neustar and Web.com. went along this path ^[3]

Notes