DONUTS gets $100 million of funding for new gTLD “contention sets” auctions

Donuts Inc., a registry for new generic top-level domain names (gTLDs) said today it has secured additional funding as new gTLDs approach.

The financing includes a Series B equity investment led by existing investor Generation Partners, at twice the valuation of the initial Series A round, as well as additional financing from Columbia Partners Private Capital, the latter complementing the company’s existing senior line from Comerica Bank. Specific terms of the deals were not disclosed.

The added funding follows last June’s announcement that Donuts had secured initial funding of more than $100 million from multi-billion dollar venture capital and private equity funds and a top-tier bank.

Donuts CEO and co-founder Paul Stahura said the additional capital is targeted toward securing new gTLDs in the coming months, when applicants are slated to resolve “contention sets,” an industry term for multiple applications for the same gTLD.

“We intended from the beginning to secure the gTLDs for which we applied,” Stahura said.  “We enjoy tremendous support from our stockholders and lenders. This was an oversubscribed round that nearly doubles our capacity to compete.  Our investors believe as strongly as we do that new gTLDs will bring relevance and specificity to registrants who have few usable choices today for Internet identities.  This additional capital supports that belief, and we intend to deploy it to bring new gTLDs to market.”

“Capital is a critical element of the approaching phase of the new gTLD program,” said Generation Partners Managing Partner John Hawkins.  “Donuts applied for more than three times the number of gTLDs as the next largest applicant, and the company’s investors intend for Donuts to have what it needs, or even more than it needs, to continue its leadership position.”

Stahura confirmed that Donuts has further access to additional capital should the need arise.

About Donuts Inc.
Donuts is a domain name registry that is widening competition and choice in Internet identities through hundreds of new top-level domain name choices, securely operated in multiple languages and character sets.  Donuts is headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., with offices in Southern California and Washington, D.C.  For more information, please visit www.donuts.co.

About Generation Partners
Generation Partners is a private equity firm with over $350 million of capital under management with offices in Greenwich, CT, Los Angeles, CA, and Austin, TX.  Generation provides equity capital to growth companies and pursues both majority and minority investments.  Generation specializes in recurring revenue service businesses concentrated in three industry groups:  Business & Information Services, Healthcare Services & Software and Media & Communications. Over the past 25 years, the firm’s principals have invested in more than 50 companies.  For more information on Generation Partners, please visit www.generation.com.