First Applicant Auction a success! 6 domains valued at over $9 million

Earlier today, we successfully completed our first private auction for generic Top Level Domains    (gTLDs) The auction resolved contention for the 6 participating gTLDs: .club, .college, .luxury, .photography, .red, and .vote. Auction winners will pay a total of $9.01M. All other participants  will be paid from these funds in exchange for withdrawing their application.

We are very excited that Peter Cramton's auction design worked as well as we had hoped - everything went exactly as we had planned. We received very positive feedback from all parties involved - winners and non-winners alike. 

"The auction system was clearuser-friendly, and easy to navigate," said Monica Kirchner, applicant for Luxury partners. "The process worked smoothly, and we're very happy with the outcome."

"The Applicant Auction process is extremely well organized and we were very pleased with the results for us" said Colin Campbell, of .CLUB LLC"It is a fair and efficient way to resolve contention and support the industry at the same time, with auction funds remaining among the domain contenders."

Top Level Design's CEO Ray King  praised the auction's execution. "The applicant auction process was great, the software functioned without a hitch and all of the folks involved were responsive and highly professional.  We look forward to participating in future auctions with Innovative Auctions."

In the last days leading up to the auction, many single-string and multiple-string participants have expressed an interest to participate iprivate auctions in general and the Applicant Auction in particular. Antony van Couvering's insightful article on CircleID lays out the reasons why his company TLDH will participate in private auctions, and Colin Campbell, who announced earlier today that his company was the winner for .club, predicts that  "many other parties who stood by the sidelines in this first auction will participate in future Applicant Auctions." 

We'll be holding  additional auctions in the coming months, on a schedule and under terms mutually agreed upon by applicants to resolve contention for many more of the rougly 200 gTLDs still pending. 

Please direct questions to info@applicantauction.com.