The Purple Unicorn

For more than 23 years, the Purple.com domain reflected one guy’s simple, colorful vision. But last week, the man who owned what was secretly becoming the internet’s most valuable domain finally sold it. To … wait for it … a mattress company.

Per Domain Investing, Purple Innovations LLC, the company that owns the hipster mattress giant worth an estimated $1.1 billion, purchased the domain from Jeff Abrahamson, who spent more than two decades pledging that he would never sell the domain—instead suggesting he’d rather hold onto the URL and license it out to an interested party for a six-digit sum.

Over the summer, however, he started to hint that he was thinking about selling the domain for the princely seven-digit sum of $1.5 million, which I highlighted in March might eventually become an inevitability as the mattress-maker gained steam. No word on how much the domain sold for, though Domain Investing’s Elliot Silver says that similar domains have sold for as high as $3.3 million.

With the recent tales about the importance of search engine optimization and affiliate marketing in the mattress game, Purple has a really good reason for pulling the trigger, though Silver notes that it will take some time to do a move as dramatic as moving OnPurple.com to Purple.com.

As for Abrahamson? He’s got a new domain: ISoldPurple.com.

Enjoy your newfound wealth, Jeff—as well as your interesting place in internet history.

(Mysticsartdesign/Pixabay)