A price comparison website has made the biggest ever domain name purchase by a British company – after buying the address www.top10.com for $1million (USD).
Top 10 Broadband and Top 10 Mobile Phones attract 1.5 million British users per month by providing a search engine to find the best internet and phone deals.
The company, which turned over £9million last year, has now bought the domain name www.top10.com for £660,000 from American entrepreneur Bill Gross.
As part of the deal Gross, who owns business giant Idealab, will join the Top 10 advisory board and be given a seven per cent share in the company.
Tom Leathes, co-founder of Top 10, described the purchase as a ”real boost” after the new website was launched.
He said: ”Idealab’s involvement in our business is a great endorsement of our company’s success to date, and will provide a real boost to our plans ahead for Top10.com.
”While we have doubled in size every year since we started in 2006, Idealab’s involvement will help us move to the next level as a business.
”We want to expand our user-focused approach to comparison into some exciting new products and the global marketplace.
”With Top10.com, we aim to reinvent the way people find and compare products, and we will be working with Bill and the Idealab team to bring this vision to fruition in 2010 and beyond.”
Top 10 Broadband and Top 10 Mobile Phones was founded in 2006 and employs over 20 staff in London.
The old websites www.top10-broadband.co.uk and www.top10.co.uk were redirected to www.top10.com.
Bill Gross, Chief Executive of Idealab, added: ”The Top 10 team has already been highly successful and consistently profitable and there is amazing potential for future growth.
”We think that the price comparison sector is ripe for change, and in need of innovation.”