History
GoDaddy was founded in 1997 by Baltimore, Maryland entrepreneur Bob Parsons. Prior to GoDaddy, Parsons sold his financial software services company, "Parsons Technology, Inc." to Intuit for $64m in 1994.[8] Parsons came out of his retirement in 1997 to launch Jomax Technologies, which later became GoDaddy Group Inc. GoDaddy received a strategic investment from top venture capital funds, KKR, Silver Lake, and Technology Crossover Ventures.
Company name
In 1999, a group of employees at Jomax Technologies were brainstorming and decided to change the company name. An employee said, "How about Big Daddy?" However, the domain name had already been purchased. Parsons replied, "How about Go Daddy?" The name was available, so he bought it.[10] Parsons said the company stuck with the name because it made people smile and remember it.[10]
The company changed its name branding from "Go Daddy"[11] to "GoDaddy" in February 2006.
Company growth
In 2001, soon after Network Solutions was no longer the only place to register a domain, GoDaddy was approximately the same size as competitors Dotster and eNom.
In April 2005, GoDaddy became the largest ICANN-accredited registrar on the Internet.
Acquisitions
- In July 2012, GoDaddy announced it would acquire Outright for an undisclosed amount.
- In August 2013, GoDaddy announced it would acquire Locu for $70 million.
- In September 2013, GoDaddy acquired domain marketplace Afternic from NameMedia. GoDaddy will also acquire domain parking service SmartName and business name generator NameFind.
- On October 15, 2013, GoDaddy acquired web hosting service provider Media Temple. In a newsletter sent to its customers, Media Temple said that they "will continue operating as an independent and autonomous company."[17]
- In July 2014, GoDaddy acquired Canary, a small Cambridge-based smart calendar service.
- On August 20, 2014, GoDaddy acquired Mad Mimi, a Brooklyn-based email marketing service.
- In April 2015, GoDaddy acquired Elto, "a San Francisco-based startup which had been offering a marketplace that helped connect business owners and other non-technical people to web developers who could help them establish and improve their web presence."
- In April 2015 and November 2015, GoDaddy acquired the domain portfolios of Marchex and Worldwide Media respectively.
- On May 17, 2016, GoDaddy acquired FreedomVoice for $42 million in cash. FreedomVoice is a provider of cloud-based VoIP phone systems across the United States.
- On December 6, 2016, GoDaddy announced its acquisition of Host Europe Group.[22]
Credit
All data is taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoDaddy just for information.
