We do a deep-dive analysis of the most popular domain extensions (TLDs) for startups.
Q1 2015 Popular Domain Extensions
During the first 3 months of this year we reviewed a total of 449 newly funded startups that raised a combined 525 million+ US dollars in Seed and Angel funding which averages around 1,170,000 US dollar in funding per company
With 75% of startups that received funding during the 1st quarter of 2015 using a .com it is safe to say that .Com is still the undisputed king. The availability of a ton of new domain endings (the new gTLDs) such as .Club, .Guru and .Click hardly made an impact with a measly 3 funded startups so far launching with one of the new domain name extensions. Most used by startups after .com are the country level extensions (ccTLDs) with 8%. Most used in the ccTLD group are .Co.uk for the United Kingdom and .In for India. Still going strong is .Co, the domain extension marketed as THE domain name of choice for startups during the past few years and together with the new cool kid in the class, .IO they account for more than 11% of the tasty pie above.
Q2 2015 Extensions
Q2 report is based on 748 newly funded startups who raised a whopping 1.9 billion dollars in funding during the second quarter of this year.
More data means even more accurate stats and facts and this report gives great insights in which domain name extensions are gaining traction among newly started companies across the globe.
It wasn’t much of a surprise that .Com took the majority of the pie with 75.8 percent in Q1 and it was interesting to see the rise of the .io TLD in the beginning of the year. The big question of course remains how well the new gTLDs are performing.
There’s been a lot of fluffy talk from some of the domaining bloggers about the potential potential (see what I did there?) of these new extensions but the only thing that counts in my opinion is actual adoption of the new extension by funded startups. Could it be that .tv beats all the new gTLDs combined in actual usage?
Let’s find out 🙂
The king of TLDs remains it dominant position with pretty much the same percentage of ownership as in Q1, 75%. Most used by startups after .com are the country level extensions (ccTLDs) with 10.6% of the pie which is a 2 percent increase from Q1. Most used in the ccTLD group is .In by far. India’s startup scene is on fire with plenty of venture capital flowing in multiple startups every week. .Co and .Io are both losing a couple of percent market share but remain popular alternatives with a combined 7.7% of start-ups choosing for one the extensions.
The big surprise for me is the increasing popularity of .me and .tv. Both of these extensions prove to be more popular among funded startups than all the new gTLDs combined. With a measly 6 startups that launched with one of the 329 new available domain name extensions the new Gs only take 0.8% of the pie.
Q3 2015 Report
Q3 analysis is based on 867 newly funded startups who raised a whopping 4 billion dollars in funding in the past 3 months. More data = more accurate stats so this report gives you some great insights in which domain name extensions are gaining traction among newly started companies across the globe. .Com has been dominating with a market share of more than 75% during the first half of this year while the ccTLDs grew from 8 to 10%.
The new gTLDs have been performing extremely badly so far with a combined market share below 1% in both Q1 and Q2.
So, has anything changed during the third quarter of the year? Let’s find out!
The king of TLDs keeps it dominant position with pretty much the same percentage of ownership as in the first half of the year, 75%. Most used by startups after .Com are the country level extensions (ccTLDs) with 12.62% of the pie which is another increase from Q2. With 42 startups, most used in the ccTLD group is the Indian TLD .IN by far. India’s startup remains super hot is with plenty of venture capital flowing in multiple startups every week. .Co and .Io remain popular alternatives with a combined 7.4% of start-ups choosing for one the extensions.
Then there is notable mention for .Me and .Tv. Both of these extensions prove to be more popular among funded startups than all the new gTLDs combined. With just 4 startups that launched with one of the 350 new available domain name extensions the new gTLDs only take 0.5% of the pie which is even less than in Q2 when we saw 6 startups brave enough to launch with one of the new Gs.
Q4 2015 Report
Q4 is based on 1037 newly funded startups that raised a staggering 4.8 billion dollars in funding during the last 3 months of 2015.
Data doesn’t lie so this report gives you great insights in which domain name extensions are preferred among newly started companies across the globe. .Com has been dominating with a market share of more than 75% during the three quarters of 2015 while the ccTLDs grew from 8 to 12%. The new gTLDs have been performing poorly so far with a combined market share below 0.5% in Q1 till Q3.
So what (if anything) has changed during the last quarter of the year? Let’s find out!
.Com keeps it’s dominant position with pretty much the same percentage of ownership as the rest of the year, 74.1%. The ccTLDs continue to claim a bigger piece of the pie every quarter. More than 15% of startups in Q4 launched with a ccTLD with India being the main driver of this growth as .In has proven to be a popular alternative for a .Com name for the many new startups that the country is producing.
.Co and .Io were less popular alternatives during Q4 with a combined 6.1% of start-ups choosing for one of these extensions.
The new gTLDs did a lot better in Q4 with 12 startups and grabbed a little more than 1% of the pie during Q4 outperforming .Net, .Org, .Me and .TV. It still is a pretty poor performance when you keep in mind the new Gs exist of over 350 domain name extensions for startups to choose from.
