The wild story of loom.com, the $150K domain name

Back in 2017, Loom rebranded from their original name Opentest to Loom. The new name felt right because it captured exactly what they were doing — weaving conversations through video. Plus they had bigger plans, they wanted “Loom” to become a verb so people would say things like “send me a loom”. Big goals, right?

As the company took off, so did their name recognition. But with growth came new challenges. One of their early investors suggested they trademark the name Loom to avoid confusion with other brands. He was right — and it wasn’t long before they found out why.

At first, they were operating under the domain name useloom.com for most of 2017 and 2018. And as Loom started taking off, they realized their name was starting to become a real brand — one that people were talking about. But with that growth came an issue, users kept confusing them with another company also called “Loom” which was offering a totally different product but happened to have chat support just like they did. This confusion started bubbling up right as they were closing their Series A. With the new investment coming in and the promise to their investors that they’d be the Loom in the market, pressure was on to take their branding seriously.

That’s when Shahed Khan, one of Loom’s 3 co-founders, knew what had to be done. He had to figure out who owned the loom.com domain, track down the social handles, and sort out the SEO attached to the name. Turns out, loom.com was owned by a public SaaS company. They had bought another company called Loom a few years back, shut it down and left the domain collecting dust. It wasn’t doing them any favors just sitting there.

The First Offer

Shahed managed to connect with the CEO of the company, who put him in touch with their IP person and legal team. Then the back-and-forth started. They had never sold off unused IP before, so they had to create a whole process, get approvals, and all that fun stuff. Knowing that the domain could be appraised for well over $400,000, Shahed made a bold offer — $50k. He explained that Loom was still a small startup and didn’t have much of a budget. To his surprise, they came back with an offer to sell it for $75,000.

It felt like a total win. Shahed was ready to sign the documents and send the wire. But then, radio silence. The legal team stopped responding. Weeks passed with no response. Shahed sent email after email, even tried connecting with their legal team on LinkedIn, but got nothing. Nearly a month after agreeing on the price, he finally heard back. But this time, the news wasn’t great. A few days earlier, another party had reached out — very interested in buying the same domain. Okay, now what?

The legal team put Shahed in contact with the competing party, telling him to negotiate and bring back the highest offer. To his surprise, this other startup was pre-product and had raised even less than Loom, but here’s the kicker — they had approval to spend up to $500,000 on loom.com. Yeah, no way Loom could compete with that, and the other startup wasn’t backing down either. Fortunately, the cards fell in Shahed’s favor. The other company hadn’t disclosed their budget to the legal team, and the legal team never mentioned Loom’s bid to them. This gave Shahed a chance to stay in the game, even with far less money to offer.

The Bidding War Begins

After countless Zoom calls and emails with the competing startup’s CEO, Shahed and the team were determined to win the deal. They made it clear that they had just closed their Series A, held the trademark on Loom, and their users already strongly associated the name with them. But it wasn’t enough to simply state their case. Shahed, along with co-founders Joe and Vinay, had to get creative. Their goal now? Convince the other startup to pick a new name.

The competing CEO’s biggest concern wasn’t just the domain — it was the time and effort it would take to find a new name and rebuild their brand identity. Understanding this, Shahed and his team came up with a solution that might settle things quickly. They offered to pay $75,000 in cash upfront to cover the costs of the rebrand. The catch? The other company had to walk away from loom.com.

To their complete surprise, the other startup accepted the offer. They walked away from the negotiation, and the legal team agreed to sell loom.com to Shahed and his team for $75,000. The competing CEO got $75,000 to rebrand, and Loom secured the domain for a total of $150,000 — far below its estimated worth of over $500,000. In the end, Loom won the domain, thanks to a mix of creativity, persistence, and a little bit of luck.

From Startup to $975 Million Acquisition

Since securing loom.com, Loom’s journey has been nothing short of impressive. The company raised over $200 million along the way, including a $30 million Series B in 2019 that attracted some of the industry’s biggest names — Figma CEO Dylan Field, Front CEO Mathilde Collin, and Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, alongside top VC firms Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins.

As Loom continued to scale, their customer base became a who’s who of major corporations across different industries. Companies like Ford, Tesla, Disney, Walmart, Goldman Sachs, and Amazon all turned to Loom for seamless video, especially during the COVID remote work boom.

In late 2023, Loom was acquired by Atlassian for a cool $975 million. Atlassian plans to finance the acquisition with cash on hand, with the deal expected to close pending typical conditions and regulatory approval.

So, it’s safe to say that securing the loom.com domain name back in 2018 paid off immensely for Shahed, Joe, Vinay, and the entire Loom team. What started as a $150,000 bet on branding has evolved into a game-changing deal and a nearly billion-dollar acquisition.