TOP LEVEL DOMAIN HLDG LTD 
By September 30, 2013
Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (AIM: TLDH.L), the only publicly traded company focused exclusively on acquiring and operating new generic top-level domains ("gTLDs"), today announces its unaudited interim results for the 6 months ended 30 June 2013 (the "Period").
Period Highlights:
- The Company successfully raised £6.6 million in funding from institutional and other investors, including directors. The funds provided additional working capital and in particular, additional funding for the Company to resolve contention sets, including participation in private or ICANN-sponsored auctions of contested gTLDs (where another applicant(s) has also applied for the same gTLD);
- The Company resolved contention sets for three of its gTLDs, securing the rights to one gTLD and a revenue share on a second gTLD. As at 30 June the Company had an interest in 23 uncontested applications, including 15 wholly / majority owned gTLDs - post period this has increased to 25;
- All of TLDH's and client gTLD applications have passed Initial Evaluation and are moving on towards the next set of steps (i.e., contract signing and pre-delegation testing) prior to officially launching save one where approval is still being sought;
- The Company agreed a funding facility for up to $15 million (£9.4 million) to support its participation in a prospective auction in relation to a specific contested gTLD;
- The Company participated in ICANN's beta program for Pre-Delegation Testing (PDT) and has successfully passed PDT. The process has allowed TLDH to get an advanced look at the PDT process as it prepares for actual PDT later this year;
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The Company's core registry operations have been established in Dublin, Ireland and additional operations are being set up in London.
Post Period Highlights
- Contract signed with ICANN for the first application in which TLDH has an interest, .KIWI;
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Agreement entered into with Tucows to partner in the auction process on three contested applications.
Executive Chairman, Fred Krueger, commented:
We are now in the final stages of the most significant development in the history of the Internet Domain Name System. We are the fourth largest applicant in the world for new gTLDs after Donuts, Google, and Amazon and have significant financial resources. Our cost base is lower than many of our competitors and we believe that we have the highest valued portfolio of geographic TLDs in the industry. Our servers and infrastructure have passed initial pre-delegation testing. In short, we are ready to go - both to launch and manage our portfolio of uncontested gTLDs, and those of our clients, as well as to monetise those contested applications where we take the view that a gTLD string is being over-valued by our competitors. And given the recent signing of contract between .KIWI and ICANN, we may potentially see our first revenues as a back-end registry operator as early as Q4 2013, and revenue from the sale of domain names from our first wholly-owned new gTLD by Q1 2014.
A full copy of the unaudited interim accounts is available here.
For further information, please contact:
Top Level Domain Holdings Limited
North America
Antony Van Couvering
Tel: +1 917 406 7126Beaumont Cornish Limited (Nomad)
Roland Cornish
Michael Cornish
Tel +44 (0) 20 7628 3396N+1 Singer (Broker)
Matt Thomas
Tel +44 (0) 20 3205 7500gth media relations
Toby Hall/Suzanne Johnson Walsh
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3103 3903/2About Top Level Domain Holdings Limited
Top Level Domain Holdings is a publicly-traded holding company listed on the London AIM market. The company is focused on the new top-level domain space. Top-level domains, such as .com, run by VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN), and .biz, run by NeuStar (NYSE: NSR), are regulated by ICANN. ICANN has announced plans to expand the number of top-level domains. TLDH intends to make targeted investments in this space, focusing on both infrastructure technologies and specific top-level domains.
Minds + Machines is a registry services provider that works internationally with commercial organisations, cities, not-for-profits, and entrepreneurs to secure and operate new web domains, known as top-level domains (TLDs). Minds and Machines Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Top Level Domains Holdings Limited.
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