folder Filed in Funding daily, Lists
United States Startups 2021 and Their Domain Choices
By Tatiana Bonneau access_time 2 min read

What choices do entrepreneurs make in the US when it comes to their brand online? The official country extension for the United States is .us. It is reserved to citizens and businesses in the US. You can be an individual, corporation, or nonprofit organization, but you must be a permanent resident or have your business operating in the United States if you want to have a domain name with the .us extension. A curious story with .us is that in 2002 there was a second level domain extension set up with it – .kids.us and it was meant for education content. Fast forward to 2012, due to its lack of popularity the .kids.us was suspended. By that time only 651 domains were registered under .kids.us, and only six registrants were operating active websites.

We’ve combined the findings of fundz and CBInsights along with our ongoing research to compile a list of successful companies. Let’s have a look at what their domain names are like. Ironically only 48 of the businesses on the list have the .us extension. The reasoning is likely their audience – most are operating online and so targeting global customers so the .com extension proves to be more familiar and less limiting.

domain extensionnumber of startups
.com6949
.org257
.io215
.ai130
.net123
.co113
.us48
.me13

Over 83% of United States startups chose the .com extension for their online presence. Here is how the other extensions compare visually.

3.5% of businesses have a dash in their name.

Below is a preview of the full list of 7848 United States startups. For a complete list, feel free to contact MarkUpgrade.


How does your brand name match your company vision? What new horizons can a better name open? Get in touch if you feel your brand deserves a better name, we are always happy to help.