Ethos Capital is an American private equity investment firm founded in 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts, in order to make majority and control minority investments in middle-market companies, primarily across North America and Europe.
In 2020, Ethos made news for trying to purchase the .org domain and capitalize upon it using a portfolio of data-monetization startups.
[1][2] After the takeover failed due to ICANN voting against the sale of the rights,[3] company founders Erik Brooks and Fadi Chehadé[4] went on to use the vehicle to buy domain name registrar Donuts and registry services provider Afilias from Abry Partners, where Brooks had been managing partner.
[5][6][7] In 2022, Afilias and Donuts were merged into a single company, Identity Digital.
[9][10] and current employer Ethos Capital, and the unraveling of a complex web of interlocking control and ownership between domain name registries, registrars, and ICANN, which nominally regulates the domain name industry.