Dow and Dirty: Investor Pushes Porn Hedge Fund

Looking for a conservative investment? Forget bonds and go for bondage—or, at least, that’s the pitch for AdultVest, a hedge fund its CEO tells the Atlantic is an adult-entertainment industry first. The spiel: AdultVest is up 50% in the past year (based on “very conservative” appraisals), and the porn industry, which hasn’t seen much outside investment, generated approximately $12 billion in 2007.

As the industry struggles to compete with free online content, its future lies in new technology. One start-up in AdultVest’s portfolio is developing an application to send dirty movies to the Apple iPod. But this hedge fund is ultimately betting on desire itself: “The industry’s not going anywhere,” AdultVest’s CEO said. “You’ve got 6 billion people on the planet, and they’re all horny.” (More sex stories.)