Company Domains
Openai.com Was Registered in 2007. OpenAI Didn't Exist Until 2015.
openai.com is 8 years older than the company that uses it, and the Internet Archive has the site on record from 2001.
Key takeaways
- openai.com was first registered on 19 January 2007 and its registration runs until 19 January 2029.
- OpenAI was founded in 2015, 8 years after the domain was registered.
- The Internet Archive’s earliest saved copy of the site is from 6 July 2001.
- Crunchbase lists about $181B of total equity funding, which is money raised, not valuation.
openai.com was first registered on 19 January 2007. OpenAI did not exist until 2015. Its founders are Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Pamela Vagata, Vicki Cheung, John Schulman, Greg Brockman, Andrej Karpathy, Diederik P. Kingma, Wojciech Zaremba, Ilya Sutskever and Elon Musk. The domain is 8 years older than the company that now uses it.
OpenAI has raised about $181B in equity, according to Crunchbase. That is not a valuation, and the figure is rounded. That puts OpenAI at number 1 of the 1,856 companies in the list used for this series.
The company at a glance
| Founded | 2015 |
| Founders | Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Pamela Vagata, Vicki Cheung, John Schulman, Greg Brockman, Andrej Karpathy, Diederik P. Kingma, Wojciech Zaremba, Ilya Sutskever, Elon Musk |
| Headquarters | San Francisco |
| Total equity funding | $181B raised, not valuation (Crunchbase, rounded) |
The domain at a glance
| Extension | .com |
| Name length | six letters |
| First registered | 19 January 2007 |
| Age | 19 years |
| Registered until | 19 January 2029 |
| First archived | 6 July 2001 (Internet Archive) |
| Registrar | MarkMonitor Inc. |
| Locked | Yes, against transfer |
| DNS | Azure DNS |
| Google Workspace | |
| Other extensions | openai.co.uk redirects to zenning.ai; openai.io redirects to openai.com |
What the registry records
The registry gives openai.com a creation date of 19 January 2007 and a registration that runs until 19 January 2029. The registrar is MarkMonitor Inc, and the domain carries registry locks against transfer.
The current registration of openai.com is 19 years old. 1,362 of the 1,912 companies in the Crunchbase list use a .com address.
A registry creation date is the start of the current registration, not a sale date, and the record does not name earlier holders.
The site before the company
The Internet Archive’s earliest saved copy of openai.com is from 6 July 2001 and is titled “b/w”. It holds copies from 16 separate months before OpenAI was founded. It has no copy for 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012 or 2013. In total it holds copies from 141 separate months.
An archived page title shows what a site called itself, not who ran it.
How the name is used now
openai.io redirects to openai.com. openai.co.uk redirects to zenning.ai. The DNS is hosted on Azure DNS and email runs on Google Workspace.
The company behind the name
OpenAI is headquartered in San Francisco.
The price question
What OpenAI paid for openai.com is not on any verified public record, so no price is given.
Live GoDaddy auction
Amazon picks for today
Sources
Registry data checked 17 October 2026. Funding is from the Crunchbase Unicorn Board, which rounds its figures.
Domain links go via an affiliate network and Amazon links carry our Associates tag, so we may earn a commission at no cost to you. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Bids and prices change quickly; check the listing for the current figure.
Frequently asked questions
When was openai.com registered?
openai.com was first registered on 19 January 2007, according to the .com registry record. The registration runs until 19 January 2029.
How much did OpenAI pay for openai.com?
No verified public record was found of what OpenAI paid for openai.com, so no price is given.
Who founded OpenAI?
OpenAI was founded in 2015 by Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Pamela Vagata, Vicki Cheung, John Schulman, Greg Brockman, Andrej Karpathy, Diederik P. Kingma, Wojciech Zaremba, Ilya Sutskever and Elon Musk.
