.foundry
Is .foundry a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.foundry is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 8 October 2026. It is Starlight (Namecheap).
An evocative word for studios, chip shops, and "venture foundries," but most would still pick .com; demand looks thin and specialist.
deep-tech and creative studios, semiconductor and hardware shops, venture builders and AI "foundry" programs that want a maker-flavored brand suffix
In Journey To The West's published portfolio of 323 strings submitted in the ICANN 2026 round. Their catalog line: “Where chip designs become silicon reality.”
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a singular generic noun naming a place-where-things-get-made that small creative and production shops already use as the literal last word of their company name, so the registry is selling identity replacement ("Acme Studio" → acme.studio) rather than a topic.
Same bet in the industrial register: an English workshop/plant noun that functions as a company-name suffix, betting that firms styling themselves "X Works" will treat the extension as the second half of their name.
Same suffix-as-identity mechanic for maker/industrial-flavored companies, but it is a plural abstract category word rather than a concrete place-of-making, so it reads more as a corporate-vanity descriptor than a craft workshop.
What a .foundry domain is
.foundry is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under AI & tech. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .foundry domain extension real yet?
.foundry is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. It is a string applicants have put forward in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, the process that decides whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .foundry domain?
You can’t yet. A .foundry name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .foundry was .studio, delegated on 8 July 2015.
Is .foundry a real TLD?
Not yet. .foundry is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .foundry is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Starlight (Namecheap) · noteDomain Name Wire
- Journey To The West · now abandonedICANN
- Starlight (Namecheap) · first recordedICANN
- Journey To The West · first recordedJourney To The West Corporation
“DEI2680T-T58789 · Deneb Exploration, Inc. · primary”ICANN
“For us, moving into the registry side is a natural extension of what we have been building.”Domain Name Wire
“.foundry · Tech & Electronics · “Where chip designs become silicon reality.””Journey To The West Corporation
- Band chosen: 30-49 (usable but limited). 'Foundry' carries real brand currency — it recurs in names of VFX houses, game-tool makers, venture studios, and AI platform branding, and semiconductors give it a concrete industrial meaning — so a serious studio or deep-tech shop could plausibly adopt name.foundry as a primary identity, which lifts it above the 10-29 vanity band. But by analogy with maker-adjacent TLDs like .studio, .works, and .engineering (flagged as analogy), such strings tend to see modest, explanation-required adoption rather than category-default status, and the actual semiconductor-foundry population is tiny and conservative about domains, so it does not reach the 50-69 strong-niche band. Aftermarket value would likely concentrate in a handful of generic labels (ai.foundry-style pairings) rather than broad resale demand. Main market uncertainty: whether the current 'AI foundry / venture foundry' branding fashion converts into real registrations over the next 5 years or stays a naming trope pointed at .com and .ai.