In Google limelight, XYZ CEO rules out sale

(By Noor Zainab Hussain, Reuters) – Daniel Negari could not be clearer – his company is not for sale.

XYZ.com LLC’s founder and CEO Negari says he was literally shaking with excitement when he read Google Inc’s announcement that .xyz would host the website of the tech giant’s new company, Alphabet Inc.

“I walked over to my team and said this is the biggest thing that could have ever happened to us. I read the message again because it was so surreal,” Negari said.

The 29-year-old entrepreneur, who has offices in Beverly Hills and Las Vegas, told Reuters on Monday that XYZ had seen a very large increase in interest for strategic investments as well as total buyout after Google unveiled its new face.

Negari, however, insists that his company is not for sale.

“I believe I was put on the earth to do .xyz, and to bring it to the market. My work is nowhere near done,” Negari said.

He added that the company had seen interest from large technology players amongst others.

The young CEO, who paid the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) $185,000 to apply for .xyz, told Reuters that while an initial public offering could not be ruled out, the company did not have any immediate plans for it.

Google’s validation of the .xyz domain has helped the number of domains the company registers grow many fold, ICANN’S youngest registry operator Negari said.

While the company normally registers 3,000 domains a day on average, 30,000 .xyz domains were registered in the week of Google’s announcement.

“This (Google’s announcement) raises the profile to a level that all the marketing and advertising we do all over the world couldn’t have taken us to,” Negari said.

XYZ also owns .college and .rent and plans to launch domains such as .security, .protection, .theatre, .car, .cars and .auto by the end of this year.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Don Sebastian)