Minds + Machines Group Limited .WORK MOST INVESTMENT SUPPORTED NEW gTLD IN 2018

TIDMMMX

Minds + Machines Group Limited

15 August 2018

RNS Reach: For release on 15 August 2018 at 07:00am

Minds + Machines Group Limited

("MMX", the "Company" or "Group")

.WORK MOST INVESTMENT SUPPORTED NEW gTLD IN 2018

Twelve .WORK Start-ups Receive $168 million in Initial & Growth Funding Year To Date

Minds + Machines Group Limited (AIM: MMX), one of the world's leading owners and operators of Internet Top-Level Domains ("gTLDs"), is pleased to announce that as at the end of July 2018 early stage businesses using the Company's .work gTLD have received $168 million in initial or growth funding, making it the most investment supported new gTLD for start-ups in the current year, based on an analysis of data provided by crunchbase.com.

The data shows, that in total 288 companies in 107 new gTLD extensions have received $1.05 billion in start-up funding (defined as Angel, Seed, Debt, Crowd, Grant, Private, Venture, Series A/B/C*). This is a significant increase from the circa $450 million of like-for-like funding received by early stage businesses using new gTLD extensions during the previous two years.

Originally launched in 2015, MMX has seen registrations in .work nearly quadruple over the last 12 months to circa 420,000. Sites running on .work include Amazon.work which is used as an employee portal.

Toby Hall, CEO of MMX, commented:

"We are witnessing a major shift in sentiment amongst new-start enterprises and underlying investors towards new gTLD extensions. We expect this trend to continue and believe it is additionally benefiting from the public offerings of enterprises that have adopted alternative endings, $9 billion having been raised by such companies YTD**. The support by the investment community of businesses using new gTLD endings augurs well for our entire portfolio, not just .work."

Six of the twelve .work businesses that have raised $168 million this year are co-location workspace companies and three are recruitment platforms. Their office locations include New York, London, Tel Aviv, Boston, China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney, illustrating the international appeal of the .work address. These businesses include Hyr.work, Covet.work, Zinc.work, Ambi.work, Mixer.work, Nash.work, Commonground.work and Campfire.work.

-ends-

* excludes both ICO's and post IPO's

** As of 30 July 2018, companies using new gTLD addresses had raised $5.1billion post IPOs, and $4.4billion through ICO's

For further information: www.mmx.com:

 
Minds + Machines Group Limited 
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About MMX

Minds + Machines Group Limited (LSE: MMX) is the owner and operator of a world class portfolio of 32 top-level domain assets (gTLDs). As a sales and marketing-led registry business, we are focused on commercializing our portfolio in partnership with our expanding global network of distribution partners.

The MMX portfolio is currently focused around geographic domains (e.g. .london, .boston, .miami, .bayern), professional occupations (e.g. .law, .abogado, and .dds), consumer interests (e.g. .fashion, .wedding, .vip), lifestyle (e.g. .fit, .surf, .yoga), outdoor activities (e.g..fishing, .garden, .horse) and generic names such as .work and .casa. The Company also recently acquired the ICM portfolio of four high value, niche TLDs. As a business, we work through our expanding international network of registrars and distribution partners to bring the benefits of affinity based domain addresses and identifiers to B2B and consumer audiences.

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August 15, 2018 02:00 ET (06:00 GMT)