Winged Media Secures $3 Million VC Investment

Winged Media, a market leader in domain technology and monetisation, today confirmed it has secured $3 million in additional investment from Carnegie Innovation Fund, LP (Carnegie Fund).

The Carnegie Fund is supported by the Australian Government through the Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) programme, an initiative that provides venture capital to innovative companies at seed, start-up or early expansion stage. This is the first investment by the Carnegie Fund in the Technology lane, headed by Jodi Stanton.

The Winged Media portfolio spans a number of internet products and services focused on digital media, online advertising, domain assets and online publishing. However at its core, Winged Media is a professional domain trading organisation – buying domain names, building websites and selling them for a profit in the emerging asset class of Domaining.

Key to this round of funding from the Carnegie Fund is the development and launch of the Winged Media platform, Protrada.

Based on Winged Media’s own Intellectual Property (IP) for domain trading, Protrada is the world’s first aggregator of major domain auction houses. It provides members with the data and tools to buy, build and sell domains automatically from within the platform. The platform currently manages more than 150 000 domains.
According to CEO and Founder of Winged Media, Troy Rushton, “Winged Media has developed the IP and tools to make Domaining easy for both the expert and the first time investor. We understand the strategies it takes to secure a domain, how to create traffic and monetise that site in the shortest possible timeframe.”

Rushton continued, “We are delighted with the investment from the Carnegie Fund and how this will further help us rollout the Protrada platform. Together we believe we can push the boundaries of the technology and entrepreneurial capabilities of the team, showcasing Winged Media’s IP in an easy-to-use domain trading service,” Rushton concluded.

“We are excited about our investment with Winged Media,” outlined Mark Carnegie, Principal, M.H. Carnegie & Co. “Domaining has increased its momentum throughout 2011, with activity levels outperforming the NASDAQ during key periods. With the introduction of the Winged Media IP into the domain trading experience, we believe that the sector will continue to develop and be acknowledged as an emerging asset class,” he said.