Amidst much online criticism over owning and putting up the domain Ebola.com for sale, Blue String Ventures Inc. was able to successfully sell the controversial domain on Monday.
The company that bought the domain was Weed Growth Fund, who bought it for a total of $50,000 in cash, plus 19,192 shares of Cannabis Sativa Inc.
According to reports, Weed Growth Fund is a majority investor in Cannabis Sativa Inc. and at a current share price of $8.55, it works out to a total of $214,000 in total.
Not a bad ROI, considering that Blue String Ventures Inc. was estimated to have originally purchased the domain for $13,500.
Jon Schultz, founder of Blue Sting Ventures, shared that the buyer for Ebola.com contacted him after reading an online article about the sale of the domain.
Schultz and his business partner, Chris Hood, have bought and sold domain names in the past. The sale of Ebola.com, however, seemed to garner much attention, some of which was negative, because of the current outbreak in West Africa which worldwide health officials are still struggling to contain.
"We've had others like LasVegasRealEstate.com and PaydayLoans.com that sold for more. People don't understand what we do. We don't buy domain names hoping there's a disaster," Schultz said in an interview with Huff Post.
Although Schultz does not know what the new owner of the domain plans to do with it, Eric Miller, CEO of Weed Growth Fund Inc., who is the former vice president of Millionaire Magazine, said that their group plans to make it a hub for Ebola-related news and information.
"It's going to be like a Drudge Report for Ebola. It will bring all the information about Ebola together in once place," he said.
Some observers have wondered why a cannabis and marijuana company would have any interest in the Ebola.com domain.
Recently, the former governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, who is the current president and CEO of Cannabis Sativa Inc., made headlines when he supposedly claimed that marijuana may be able to treat Ebola.
"We actually believe we have efficacy with regard to treating Ebola," he said in an interview with Fox News on how he thought the U.S. Government was handling the Ebola crisis.
Miller, as well, has been quoted as saying that his company has plans of financing research on the possible connection between Ebola prevention and cannabis.
