Fund.com

In March 2008, Clek Media announced that it had brokered the sale of the domain name “Fund.com” for nearly $10 million in an all-cash transaction, to the company Fund.com Inc. Although never confirmed by the company itself, the purchase price would have been the highest recorded price paid for a web site domain up to that point, followed by Porn.com ($9.5 million) Business.com ($7.5 million) and Diamond.com ($7.5 million).[3] However, some industry insiders have questioned the validity of the amount reported.[4]

The company purchased a 60% stake in AdvisorShares for an initial payment of $275,000, on October 31, 2008.[5]

On November 4, 2009, Fund.com announced its purchase of an equity interest in Mesa, Arizona-based Vensure Employer Services, Inc., a professional employer organization that provides benefits and payroll administration, health and workers' compensation insurance programs, employee training and development services, and retirement benefits plans, such as 401(k) plans, for small and medium businesses. The equity was represented by $21.9 million of participating preferred stock of Vensure.

Vensure was unable to provide Fund.com with two years of audited financial statements, and Fund.com decided to refocus after expanding a subsidiary and acquiring another company. The purchase transaction was subsequently reversed.[6]

In November 2009, the company also announced that it had purchased 100% of the capital stock of Whyte Lyon Socratic, Inc., a developer of online education programs for investors, debtors and professionals. As part of that transaction, Whyte Lyon's president Joseph J. Bianco was named chairman of the board of Fund.com.[7]

Whyte Lyon Socratic specialized in long-distance learning and assisting online students in developing the necessary skills to understand financial transactions and financial markets; develop money management skills to help them manage their income and wealth; and reach particular goals, including homeownership, debt reconciliation, and improved credit scores.

In September 2011, an unusually large 1-for-120 reverse split of Fund.com shares failed to stop the share price slide. Fund.com lost 99% of its value that year giving a market value of around $8.4 million.[1]

In late 2016, Thomas Braziel was assigned as a receiver to Fund.com and investigated how he could monetize the remaining assets of the company on behalf of shareholders.[8] Among other things, Braziel is trying to recover the fund.com URL that the previous management sold in an allegedly fraudulent transaction involving John Galanis. In addition, fund.com and AdvisorShares settled a lawsuit over an ownership dispute. In July 2018, Braziel successfully recovered the fund.com domain name for the receivership and is pursuing further action against previous insiders and recovery of other assets.[9]

In 2019, Braziel determined that Fund.com had never paid taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.[10][11] Braziel recreated, at best as possible, the financial books and records for the company between 2007 and 2017, prepared 12 years of overdue income tax returns with assistance from an outside accounting firm, and updated the outstanding share count records with assistance from a transfer agent.[10][11]

Since recovery of the Fund.com domain, Braziel and his team have begun to outfit the website as an investment media platform and as a sourcing site for claims of distressed creditors.