Identity Digital has released rather compelling research analyzing the choice of domain names by tech startups that have grown under the wings of two leading venture companies and business incubators, Y Combinator and Techstars. The analysis included data from over 4,000 startups spanning 2020 to 2025.
The study shows that in 2020, 64% of all startups chose domain names for their website in .COM. However, since then, the share of such startups has been consistently in decline, from 59% in 2021 to 50% in 2023 and 46% this year, indicating that .COM is no longer the default choice for new tech companies.
The share of new gTLDs has barely changed in the past five years (21% in 2025 as opposed to 20% in 2020). Anguilla’s ccTLD .AI has shown the highest growth: while only 7% of startups turned to .AI five years ago, this year 28% register in this domain, challenging .IO, another popular ccTLD assigned to the British Indian Ocean Territory. .IO’s share among tech startup registrations has gone down from 8% to 5% over the five years. (Identity Digital is a technical operator for both .AI and .IO).
The study also indicates that only 54% of all startup SLDs in .COM match their brands; in other cases, the companies have to add words like “get,” “use,” etc. In other TLDs, brands and domain names match 85% of the time.
