Cursor.com: A $60K Domain Bet That Paid Off at $399K
In March 2023, domain investor Mike Carson paid $60,000 for Cursor.com. At the time, there was no Cursor the AI code editor. There was no billion-dollar valuation. Just a generic, brandable domain name that happened to be available.
Twenty months later, Carson sold it for $399,000.
The Rise of Cursor
While Carson held the domain, a company called Anysphere was building an AI-powered code editor that would take the developer world by storm. They called it Cursor and launched it at Cursor.sh.
The product hit at exactly the right moment. AI coding assistants were exploding in popularity, and Cursor quickly became one of the most beloved tools in the space. Developers praised its integration with VS Code, its context-aware AI suggestions, and its intuitive interface.
By mid-2024, Cursor wasn't just another AI tool—it was rapidly becoming the default choice for developers who wanted AI pair programming.
The Domain Upgrade
Operating at Cursor.sh was fine for an early-stage product. But as Anysphere raised serious funding and Cursor's user base exploded, the mismatch between the product's ambitions and its domain became increasingly obvious.
They needed Cursor.com.
Carson owned it. And Carson was willing to sell—for the right price.
The Deal
In May 2024, they agreed to terms: $399,000. The payment process took months, finally completing in December 2024 when Carson announced the sale publicly on Twitter.
For Carson, it was a 565% return in less than two years. He'd bought the domain for $60K and sold it for nearly $400K—without doing anything except holding it.
For Cursor, the timing was perfect. The company was in the middle of a massive growth phase. Reports emerged of them raising funding at multi-billion dollar valuations. The $399K domain purchase was a rounding error compared to their fundraising, but it gave them the exact-match .com that matched their brand.
The AI Boom Multiplier
What makes this sale particularly interesting is the timing. Cursor wasn't just any startup—it was an AI coding company riding the wave of AI's explosive growth in 2023-2024.
Had Carson bought the domain a year earlier or a year later, the outcome might have been completely different. But he bought it in March 2023, right as AI tools were taking off, and right before a company with that exact name would need that exact domain.
The sale showcased a pattern that's become increasingly common in the AI era: generic, brandable domains suddenly finding their perfect match as new AI companies emerge and scale rapidly.
Carson bought Cursor.com for $60K with no knowledge that an AI code editor called Cursor would need it. Twenty months later, he walked away with $399K.
Sometimes the best domain investments are the ones you make right before you didn't know you needed to.