Type: GmbH (limited liability - Germany)
Industry: Internet, domain names
Founded: 1998
Founder(s): Alexander Siffrin
Headquarters: Im Oberen Werk 1
66386 St. Ingbert
Country: Germany
Products: DomainDiscount24,
RRPproxy,
BrandShelter,,
SkyWay-DataCenter,
Employees: 54 (2010)
Revenue: 22 million €
Website: http://key-systems.net/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/KeySystems
Twitter: @key_systems
Key People
Alexander Siffrin, CEO, CTO

Thorsten Smeets, Dir. Registry Relations
Bonnie Wittenburg, EVP, US
Jessica Pfeiffer, Marketing/Human Resources
Volker Greimann, General Counsel
Andreas Soll, Product Manager

Key-Systems, is a domain names distributor and management company. It was founded in 1998 by Alexander Siffrin, and received it's accreditation from ICANN as an official registrar in October, 2000. The German based company has subsidiaries in the U.S.A. and Mexico and provides services to its end-customers and resellers through its three domain portals: RRPproxy.net, BrandShelter.com and domaindiscount24.com. [1]

As of April 2011, Key-Systems has over 3.1 million gTLD & ccTLD domains under its management.[2] The company currently holds the second place among the leading registrars for global TLDs in Europe;[3] and Key-Systems is ranked the 12th largest ICANN registrar worldwide.[4]

History edit

Bexbach office
  • In 1998, Alexander Siffrin founded Key-Systems GbR (Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts), a civil law partnership company, in Friedrichsthal, Germany.

Key-Systems GbR was turned into a limited liability company Key-Systems GmbH (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) in 2000. [5]


  • In 2000, Key-Systems launched domaindiscount24.com (dd24), the domain portal for end-customers. On November 10th, 2000, ICANN announced that Key-Systems GmbH d/b/a domaindiscount24.com had qualified to be accredited as domain name registrar in the .com, .net, and .org domains. [6]
  • In 2001, Key-Systems launched its reseller portal RRPproxy.net. Key-Systems joined DENIC, the cooperative for the administration of the German ccTLD, .de; in the same year. Key-Systems also participated in the first meetings addressing the implementation of a domain .EU for Europe.
  • Key-Systems participated in VeriSign's IDN testbed in 2002. By then, Key-Systems started to provide more than 60 different domain name extensions.
  • In 2004, the company was relocated from Bexbach to Zweibrücken. Key-Systems' headquarters were later relocated from Zweibrücken to St. Ingbert, in its own company building (in 2010).
  • In 2007, Key-Systems took over the former VeriSign Namestore System, migrating more than 200,000 domains to the RRPproxy platform.
  • In October, 2008, Key-Systems invested in software developer company Avarteq.[7]
  • In May, 2009, Key-Systems founded its US subsidiary in the Washington D.C. metro area, and Bonnie Wittenburg was announced as Executive Vice President for Key-Systems USA, Inc. [8] In November, 2009, Key-Systems opened another subsidiary in Monterrey, Mexico focusing on the Latin American Market.[9]
  • In July 2009, Key-Systems invested in DevKey Domain Management Solutions, buying 49% of its share. [10]
  • In 2010, Key-Systems took over the majority of AZ.pl, a leading Polish domain registrar company and started its own TIER III datacenter (SkyWay DataCenter) [11]

Products and Services edit

Key-Systems provides services to its end-customer's resellers through its three domain portals.

  • DomainDiscount24 (dd24): domain registration portal, including web and mailspace offers available in five different languages, targeted at retail customers.
  • RRPproxy: for domain-resellers of both gTLD and ccTLD domain names, it provides registration of domains through a WebInterface, Direct-Socket-Access, Email-Template, or API.
  • BrandShelter: helps to manage and monitor huge domain portfolios and includes supports in planning, executing and operating the TLD.

Awards edit

Deloitte Technology placed Key-Systems 23rd in “Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Award” for the year 2010. [12] Key-Systems was ranked 411 in the "2009 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA Ranking and CEO Survey".[13] It was also ranked 22nd of the fastest-growing technology companies in Germany by Deloitte.

Key-Systems was ranked 8th in “Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Award” in 2008.

References edit

External Links edit