COM LAUDE COMPLETES ACQUISITION OF MARKMONITOR, CREATING A $450 MILLION GLOBAL FULL SERVICE CORPORATE DOMAIN NAME REGISTRAR

The combined Markmonitor Group is the leading expert in corporate domain name portfolio management and in obtaining new top-level domains for corporate clients

LONDON, Jan. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Com Laude, the London-headquartered provider of corporate domain services owned by PX3 Partners, announces today that it has completed the acquisition of pre-eminent US corporate domain registrar Markmonitor. This transformative transaction creates the first full service provider of advanced tools, expert advice, and "white glove" customer service tailored to the specific needs of in-house domain name managers in corporations globally. Named Markmonitor Group, the new combined entity has an initial enterprise value of circa $450 million.

Ben Crawford, previously CEO of Com Laude, has been named CEO of Markmonitor Group, with former Head of Markmonitor Stu Homan appointed COO. Markmonitor Group offers comprehensive global coverage, with regional headquarters in Boise, London, and Tokyo, as well as five other regional offices around the world, and staff in sixteen countries to support clients that generate trillions of dollars in revenues, doing business in every country in the world.

Ben Crawford, CEO of Markmonitor Group, remarked: "The combined resources of Markmonitor and Com Laude offers the highest quality proposition to companies needing help with managing their domain name portfolios, obtaining new top-level domains ("TLDs"), or securing best-in-class support for their compliance, internet infrastructure, internet policy, online brand protection, online strategy, and security. While our services are used by many of the leading companies and most valuable brands on earth, we also support companies of any size seeking the highest standard of customer service and most modern tools to manage their domain name portfolios."

The combined Markmonitor Group solves the domain name portfolio management challenges of thousands of companies globally, including most of America's twenty largest enterprises. To ensure the most responsive and expert customer service for its global client base, Markmonitor Group employs more domain portfolio advisors and domain strategists than any other company, also supporting clients with secondments of dedicated domain staff. Markmonitor Group exclusively provides its clients with its proprietary Domain Intelligence software to help optimize their portfolios.

Markmonitor Group is also vastly experienced in obtaining new top-level domains for corporations, having supported clients with 280 successful applications to operate new TLDs, including dotBrands. dotBrand TLDs allow companies to create their own bespoke, trusted URLs such as https://cloud.microsoft/ or https://home.barclays/. Unlike generic TLDs, such as .com, which anyone can register, a dotBrand TLD is exclusively controlled by the brand owner, curbing cybersquatting, providing greater consumer assurance and recognition, providing IT teams with greater security oversight, and assuring customers wary of scammers that "if there's a brand name to the right of the dot, it's really that brand's site". dotBrand TLDs also provide marketers with the creative freedom to register virtually any word as a domain name under their own TLD, often resulting in significant cost savings compared to equivalent .com domains, which can command premium prices.

With applications for dotBrand TLDs closing in mid-2026, companies only have months to take advice on the feasibility of obtaining their own TLDs and to prepare applications. The deep expertise and capacity of the Markmonitor Group, together with its proven successful processes, create an invaluable resource to help clients make the smartest decisions and obtain the optimal results in the once-in-a-decade opportunity to secure new dotBrand TLDs.

As a full-service domain registrar, Markmonitor Group also supports its clients with a suite of other practices, staffed by experts equipped with state-of-the art tools, including specialists in cyber-security, domain acquisitions and disposals, intellectual property services, internet governance and policy, IT operations and hostmaster support, new digital technologies, including AI, and online brand protection and enforcement.

For more details, please visit https://markmonitorgroup.com. 

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SOURCE Com Laude