The Latest VC Niche: Porn

from the filling-a-gap dept

There are plenty of venture capital firms that pick a particular niche in which to focus their investments, whether it's something like nanotechnology or pharmaceuticals or wireless. But apparently there was one niche left untouched: the adult industry. Hence AdultVest, an online investment community designed to foster investment in porn and other adult businesses. Given the proliferation of online porn, it wasn't obvious that the industry needed outside money to grow, but perhaps the business just wants to do its part to build up bubble 2.0. One final question: if porn VC firms grow, will they take on porn-film-like names spoofing those of mainstream VC investors?
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Oliver Wendell Jones, 21 Dec 2005 @ 8:49am

    My concern

    What 4-letter stock symbols are they going to use?

    I can't think of a lot of 4-letter words related to the industry (other than PORN and NUDE) that are suitable for publication in the daily newspaper...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Landon, 21 Dec 2005 @ 11:05am

    No Subject Given

    This actually doesnt sound like a bad investment. I mean, look where the adult industry has gone in the last 10 or so years, or even back further than that. But..... With some of their new actors comming along *cough* Mike Tyson *cough*, I take that comment back

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      toys, 21 Dec 2005 @ 12:23pm

      Re: No Subject Given

      How about ADTY, for adult toys, I sell adult toys and it can mean videos as well

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Victor, 21 Dec 2005 @ 12:32pm

    VC firm?

    You mean Stud, Draper and Jerkeson, Benchdi*k Capital, Brestsell Partners, Suckoyeah Capital, Kleiner, Perky, Cu*t & Breastes..ah, you get the idea...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    badgirl, 10 Apr 2006 @ 6:23pm

    It's About Time

    Many of us in the adult industry are working hard to offer the adult content using the most cutting edge technologies. Take a look at http://www.jewelofindra.com, for example. Before us, there was nothing like it on the net. Some others have tried but failed. Why? I believe lack of capital. Yes, the adult industry is hugely profitable. But, when one is attempting to provide more than the commonplace T & A, there are initial costs involved before the big money starts rolling in. In addition, because there is so very much porn on the net, new and innovative ideas such as Jewel of Indra need marketing capital.

    Of course, there are many sites that pretend to be family oriented so they can acquire investment capital from so called “reputable” sources. But, when they start off with a lie as the basic premise, this leads to danger such as kids and adult content within the same communities. Jewel of Indra is the first to go on record as an adult 3D chat community with porn materials. But, because of the honesty we get no juicy articles in c|Net, Wired, or any other online magazine. And we won’t get them until we ourselves have built up our membership to a point were we can no longer be ignored. Again, this requires capital. Personally, I am appalled by the hypocrisy of it all. There would be no websites of fortune 500 companies the masses not been first drawn to this technology when they learned they could share files and review naughty pictures and such right from their computers. Like the VCR the internet itself was built on the back of porn. Any company out there attempting to offer start up and expansion capital for the adult industry gets a thumbs up from me.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Jacob Rodriguez, 30 Jun 2006 @ 6:08pm

      Re: It's About Time

      The thought of this "game" is unsettling. People are dedicating their lives to an enviroment that encourages anti-socialism by rerouting it to a virtual social enviroment. Have you ever heard of a convention facilitating a sexual community calld "fuzzy"? It was a documentary that aired on MTV (of all places) that exposed people who show up dressed up in mascot costumes to have sex. Coincidently, and not suprisingly, the majority if not all participants were pale, insecure, sexually confused and likely sexually uneducated "nerds" [if you will] that lived in mom's basement [which was also featured in the documentary]. Yes, Kids who lived with mom who enjoyed his time seaching servers for pictures of cartoon animals having [rather vulgar] intercourse in the likeness of humans. Since of course women are less excited through visual stimulation it wasn't a shock to find that our buck tooth, flat haired (chest, ass, personality) female participants were desperate subservients to the thrill.

      This is very unnatural. When I think of your "game", I also think of the unlikelyhood of it being an aid to a very unbalanced walk of life. In fact, it is a piece of which is making it harder for this generation of courtship to succeed humanities roots. Human bonding through physical contact by overcoming the fear of rejection or fear of failure because of lifes little inconveniences.

      If you say its entertainment, I call it filth.

      If you say its an aid, I call it an abomination.

      If you call it convenient, then you "badgirl" need to think about why it is that you made this in the first place

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        shadowtraveller, 25 Jul 2006 @ 5:55am

        Re: Re: It's About Time

        Howdy Mr. Rodriguez and all. Jewel of Indra is not based on a "game" but on real time, 3d chat. There ARE games to be played in JOI as well, (hosted by our members who reside there.) Also, there are no "kids" who come into JOI as JOI is a passworded and subscribered based site. I would not say that JOI takes the place of real life, (whatever could do that!) but I will say that some people DO meet in real life after meeting in the virtual and some even get married. JOI is an open-minded place for adults although you will NOT find mention of bestiality or children there. What you will find are some wonderful artistry from the builders, super nice avatars with great movements,a radio station, Encalves to live in which cater to a desire you may have in mind, but best of all...great people from all over who wish to share the feeling of JOI.
        I don't suggest you visit Mr. Rodriguez, it is not for you. Please try MSN chat or Yahoo.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      EJ, 30 Nov 2006 @ 10:11pm

      Re: It's About Time

      You said it better than I ever could...
      Developing a product like the Virtual Sex Machine took over 5 years in development because of lack of huge up front capital. We got it done, but now we are in the same pinch after 6 years along in product sales to grow the product line into a medical device. Talk about need for BIG dollars.....

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Chad, 15 Apr 2007 @ 3:20pm

    I was totally psyched to find they have a chat function you can go out of 3d for then still hook up with chicks. If you're tired of 3d and need to surf you can click 2d chat and still talk . That beats Second Life when you're lagging to hell from all the users.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.