MutualFunds.com Is for Sale

MutualFunds.com of Boston is selling its domain name. The sale is part of a reorganization of the Internet start-up, which was originally founded as a mutual fund site to provide a wide variety of services to the industry, according to Abe Gorelick, senior vice president of marketing at MutualFunds.com. The 20-person company will now focus on providing online education and training for the financial services industry.

MutualFunds.com was founded in 1999 but the domain name was first registered in 1994 by Nvest Funds of Boston.

"[Nvest was] looking at URLs and had the foresight to get mutualfunds," said a spokesperson for Nvest, the fund's adviser. The adviser was one of the seed investors

for MutualFunds.com. A valuation of

the domain name was done when MutualFunds.com was formed and Nvest's transfer of the name constituted part of its investment, said Gorelick. He declined to disclose the amount of the valuation.

MutualFunds.com had an appraisal

of the domain name done by GreatDomains.com of Los Angeles, a domain name seller and appraisal company which estimated the value at between $1 million and $1.25 million, according to Gorelick. Only 28 domain names have been sold for $1 million or more, according to Submerged Ideas, another domain name company. Wallstreet.com sold for $1.03 million in May and Internetinvesting.com sold for $450,000 in June, according to Submerged Ideas. MutualFunds.com has gotten a "fair amount" of interest in the name, according to Gorelick.

"We have decided to focus on business-to-business opportunity, and believe the URL would be an underutilized asset if we were to retain it," said Speca.

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