Yuga Labs is the parent company of the Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) project. For those not familiar with NFTs, BAYC is a non-fungible token (NFT) collection of over 10 000 profile pictures of cartoon apes built on the Ethereum blockchain. Sales of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs have totaled over US$1 billion, making it one of the more prominent tokens in the space. Yuga Labs’ success may be attributed to its choice to create a community-focused strategy for maintaining the BAYC brand, enabling engagement, and building a sustainable NFT ecosystem. YugaLab’s innovative marketing approach has managed to gain the attention of various celebrities who have purchased the BAYC’s NFTs and contributed to the brand’s global recognition and mainstream adoption.
At the end of 2021, the company merged with its biggest competitor Larva Labs, acquiring the intellectual property of the NFT collectible series CryptoPunks and Meebits. The merging of two of the largest NFT collections is considered a turning point in the market that might serve as a precedent for future NFT project purchases. This year YugaLabs hit a $4 billion valuation thanks to a recent $450 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The funds will be used to expand the company’s quickly increasing team, recruit new talents, and plan joint ventures and partnerships.
This capital will give Yuga speed to market on many things underway and bring in new partners with strategic thinking that share the vision.
Yuga Labs partner Guy Oseary for BusinessWire
Yuga Labs has undoubtedly discovered the key to success, so upgrading to the exact brand match domain Yuga.com name looked like the most logical next step on its path to worldwide market supremacy. The word “labs” became trendy in company naming about a decade ago and has had some popularity over the years. It is associated with tech labs and also gives the image of a small team working in a garage – like many of the current tech giants started. Dropping the “labs” can signify Yuga’s growth and expansion into a solid global brand, opening unlimited opportunities in various sectors of activity.
The company has launched on the YugaLabs.io domain name. IO is a country code top-level domain assigned to British Indian Ocean Territory. The .io extension has gained popularity among technology start-ups due to the tech acronym IO – input/output, despite scandals about who, in fact, benefits from the sales of .io domains. Operating on .io suggests that you are a tech-oriented company and ties you to this community, which might be limiting in time. Using the most popular extension – .com, on the other hand, allows brands to diversify their activities without having to rebrand.
Matching your company name with a .com extension is one of the best ways to boost the brand’s recognition and ensure its consistency.
The world’s most valuable brands operate on similar names that communicate trust and authority.
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.
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