Overview

Even though startups saw a decline in investment compared to the previous year, venture firms were able to raise significant sums of funding in 2022. According to James Ephrati of Lightspeed Venture Partners, there is up to $1.3 trillion in “dry powder” available globally for private equity and $580 billion for venture capital. 

However, according to Crunchbase, investors are predicted to be more cautious in 2023, at least in the short term, as funding valuations are expected to fall. This will also be influenced by the fact that founders are becoming more financially disciplined, which will impact their companies success. Furthermore, limited partners (investors in venture capital funds) who have significant exposure to venture capital assets may prefer that firms raise successive funds with longer time horizons.

Check the domain name choices of the startups that got funded last month.

Namepicks

Akulaku

Akulaku is a leading banking and fintech platform in Southeast Asia, with a presence in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia. The company closed this year with a remarkable $200 million raised from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the largest bank in Japan. This strategic investment will allow Akulaku and MUFG to expand into new markets and products in 2023.

Akulaku’s emphasis on emerging markets has highlighted a vast, underserved audience in the banking industry.

Akulaku company statement

One key element of Akulaku’s branding strategy is its exact brand match domain name, Akulaku.com. This type of domain can increase trust and credibility with customers, as it shows that the company is professional and legitimate – especially important in the fintech sector. Our recent analysis of the industry reveals that the majority of the companies on the list have chosen to invest in EBM domains.

The name “Akulaku” itself means “everything is sold out” in Bahasa Indonesia. With this strong brand and domain, Akulaku is well-positioned to continue its success in the competitive world of digital finance.

CoreWeave

Founded in 2017, CoreWeave is a developer of advanced cloud infrastructure designed to provide computing resources for blockchain projects and other applications. In December, the company raised $100 million in funding from Magnetar Capital, which it plans to use to expand its on-demand GPU compute resources and democratise access to cutting-edge AI products.

CoreWeave’s brand name was carefully chosen to reflect the company’s vision and mission. The combination of the two words “core” and “weave” creates a meaningful and harmonious union. Choosing the right pair of words for a brand name can create a dialogue in which each word adds meaning to the overall concept, resulting in a brand identity that is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, the combination of the two words creates a deeper meaning than either word alone. 

To further strengthen its brand, CoreWeave has invested in an exact brand match domain name: CoreWeave.com. Many successful global brands use similar names that convey trustworthiness and authority.

Drata

Drata is a platform that helps its users automate security and compliance processes such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA. The company raised $200 million in a Series C round of funding at a $2 billion valuation, becoming one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies. Drata plans to use the funds to invest in research and development as it continues to improve its automated solution.

Since our inception, Drata has been designed to bridge the gap between compliance and trust through automation, and we’ve made significant progress in less than two years,” “This next phase of growth will only further accelerate those efforts, introduce a new wave of open compliance, and help us realise our vision of being the trust layer between our incredible customers and those they do business with.

Adam Markowitz, Drata Co-Founder and CEO for PRNewswire 

Drata, like the majority of its competitors (67% of our 1000 SaaS companies and their domain name choice list), is playing it safe by securing the EBM domain Drata.com. This type of domain name is the natural choice for most internet users and helps a brand’s marketing efforts be more effective across all channels.

Dataiku

French-founded “Everyday AI” platform Dataiku has raised $200 million in a Series F round led by new investor Wellington Management. The new round is expected to help the company further accelerate its product offering 

Founded in 2013, Dataiku self-describes its service as providing ‘Everyday AI’ through, “democratising data and empowering organisation-wide collaboration”. According to the company, over the course of 2022, it augmented its customer base to over 500, including over 150 of the world’s largest enterprises, and achieved an ARR of over $150 million.

Dataiku’s name refers to data – information that is produced or stored by a computer – and Haïku – a very short and structured form of Japanese poetry. The name Dataiku encompasses the evolution of data science from a tedious and time-consuming task to a light and efficient process. A portmanteau brand name like Dataiku is formed by combining two words or parts of words. Brand names that include descriptive elements can be more easily remembered and understood by the target audience, and they also stand out from the crowd as being more authentic to the product or company they represent.

By owning several domain names that include the brand name “Dataiku,” such as the EBM Dataiku.com, along with Dataiku.online, Dataiku.biz, and Dataiku.org, Dataiku is able to protect its brand and ensure that customers can easily find its website, allowing a wider market reach.

Mews

Richard Valtr founded Mews in 2012 with the intention of revolutionising the hospitality industry through technology, persuading a hotel owner to fund his own hotel guest solution. A decade later, the company has become a leader in the field and recently closed its Series C funding round at $185 million. This funding will be used to drive product innovation, global expansion, and strategic acquisitions.

Mews underwent a major rebranding effort three years ago in order to better reflect the company’s growth and evolution. The leadership team took the time to carefully consider the values and identity of Mews, seeking a visual identity that conveyed both the brand’s versatility and its expanding areas of focus. The result was a new look that captured the essence of Mews and its future direction.

Mews has grown tremendously, not just in terms of size, but also what our product represents today. We needed a real upgrade to better represent who we’ve become as people and what our company has become over time. In the early days, we just thought a brand was a logo, a type font and some colors, but we needed to be much more sophisticated this time. We could have gone for the obvious and created branding that was linked to a hotel or a bed, but we felt that doesn’t represent where our company will go into in the future. Hotels are where our roots lie today, but there’s so much more in the world that we can tackle with this incredibly versatile platform, and we want our brand to really represent that.

Matt Welle, CEO at Mews

Mews has further shown serious commitment to its branding by investing in the exact brand match domain name Mews.com. This not only adds credibility and professionalism to the company, but it also helps to differentiate Mews’ products and services from competitors. By owning the exact brand match domain, Mews is able to control its online presence and establish itself as the authority in its field. 

This type of investment in branding, like Mews has done, can pay off in the long run by building trust with customers and solidifying the company’s reputation. In 2022 the company made significant strides with the launch of several new initiatives. These include Mews for Salesforce, the first native integration between a property management system and the Salesforce CRM, as well as Mews Ventures, the company’s investment arm. Additionally, Mews completed the acquisition of Bizzon, a POS innovator. These moves have with no doubt solidified Mews as a driving force in the hospitality technology industry

Highlights

The majority of the companies on the list operate on the .com extension 335 out of 471. The .com extension is by far the most popular and widely recognized domain extension. According to the latest statistics, there are currently over 200 million .com domain names registered worldwide.

.io is the third preferred choice with 36 companies operating on this extension, followed by .ai with 21 entries. While .io and .ai domains may be less expensive and easier to obtain than some other popular extensions, they may not be as widely recognized by potential customers and may not convey the same level of credibility.

235 entries have invested in exact brand match domain names. EBMs can improve a website’s ranking on search engine results pages, making it more visible and increasing the chances of website traffic.

17 entries have opted to include a dash in their domain names. This can be disadvantageous as dashes can make the domain name more difficult to remember and can cause confusion. They can also make it harder for users to accurately type the domain name into their address bar.

While we make every effort to ensure the data on our site is accurate, complete, and up-to-date, we cannot guarantee its reliability. Our data is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or other advice. We strongly recommend that you independently verify any information before relying on it.

Other resources

• What Domain Extension is Best for a Startup?
• 5 Most Common Ways to Get Your Domain Name Strategy Wrong
• Digital Real Estate: The Power of Domains with Andrew Rosener
• The Power of Big Brands in Google Search Results: A Look at Alisopp’s Report

When it comes to premium domain names, it’s important to weigh the potential loss in terms of brand recognition and revenue against the cost of the investment. In the long run, a premium domain name can be a valuable asset for your business. Contact us to learn more about our premium domain options and how they can help your business succeed.

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