Freight broker payments company Axle Payments has rebranded as Denim and acquired the domain name denim.com. It announced the rebrand in conjunction with a $126 million Series B funding round.
Reflex Publishing, a company whose domains are “not for sale”, sold the domain to Denim a couple of months ago.
This strikes me as a prime example of how one word domains have moved on from being category-defining domains to being brands. Years ago, people valued domains like denim.com for the industry they defined (in this case, a fabric commonly used in jeans). Now, domains like this are used for unrelated businesses.
In this case, Denim connects the meaning of the dictionary word to its brand. In a message about the rebranding, the company wrote, “Our new brand reflects our broader ambitions to weave ourselves into the everyday fabric of the global freight economy.”