Directory >> Key People of the Domain Name Industry >> Domain Investors
The American domainer Mike Mann owns one of the largest domain portfolios in the world, with a few hundred thousand domain names, almost all in .COM. Despite the storytelling according to which he's supposed to be one of the most successful domain investors, the profitability of his business model is questionable.
A self-proclaimed "Domain King", Rick Schwartz is the one of the first instigators of the narrative about the exceptional value of domain names, sometimes by means of false claims, participation in dubious auctions and other tricks which are common in the sector. He has made a few sales worth several hundred thousand and even millions of dollars, but his domain name portfolio now comprises only a few thousand units, the majority of which have little to no market value. He declares himself to be in "semi-retirement".
Like Rick Schwartz, Digimedia founder Scott Day is part of the American narrative on the wonders of domaining. This former watermelon farmer has turned to domain names, with a few gems to his credit, such as Recipes.com and Shops.com. Digimedia owns around 1,000 domain names of high average quality, which it monetises via advertising links and sells when bids are high enough.
Fred Mercaldo (Geocentric Media) is an American geo domain investor specializing in .COM city domain names, including Scottsdale.com and hundreds of others. Founder of Castello Cities Internet Network (CCIN), Michael Castello has acquired several .COM domains for American cities and other tourist themes. The particularity of these two is that they developed websites financed by local advertising, but they were not profitable, and the domain names are now for sale again.
There are also owners of premium domain names whose primary business is not domain names, such as Brent Oxley, founder of HostGator.
See also: Braden Pollock, George Hong, Joe Uddeme, Bill Sweatman, Josh Reason, Michael Castello, Nat Cohen, Ray Neu, Rick Latona,
China is home to several leading domain name investors such as Yue Dai, including successful Internet entrepreneurs looking for speculative investments like cryptocurrencies, Web3 assets, and to a lesser extent domain names.
South Korea is a world pioneer in domain name investing, with a distinction not always noticeably clear with cybersquatting.
India has a large community of domain investors based in India or of Indian origin (ie. Aishwin Vikhona, Hiren M. Patel, Deepak Daftari, Manish Lunja, Suresh Raghavan, Sweta.xyz, Paul Singh, Prakhar Bindal, Manmeet Pal Singh...) but none of them with a large portfolio. The Indian market is handicapped by regulations from the national registry, which forbids registrars to buy and sell .IN domain names.
See also : Yoni Belousov, Daniel Dryzek
With premium domains being limited, alternative investment strategies have emerged in the early 2010’s, replacing quality by quantity.
HugeDomains is a private U.S. company whose main business is to register domain names in generic extensions that have not been renewed by their owners, and to offer them for sale. The company also owns the drop catching world leader, Dropcatch, and the registrar Namebright. HugeDomains owned between three and four million domains in early 2025, according to unofficial estimates, making it the undisputed world leader.
Following a similar strategy as HugeDomains, a few domain investors own very large portfolios at around 100,000 units or more, particularly in Germany with Martin Steinkamp (Nicsell) and Stefan Wiegard (Atop Capital) and in the Netherlands with Remco Doeve (Dovendi) and Ivo van Soest (Nomio24). Other large players include Gregg Mc Nair (Australia), Ryan De Corsie Ewen (UK), Thomas Dolezal (Austria) and David Czincenheim (France).
Obviously, the processes of domain purchases and sales are automated, with some domains being cybersquatting domains and regularly subject to UDRP and other extrajudicial procedures.
Luc Biggs is a Swiss domainer, based in Portugal.
See also : Frans Citroën