Ashes to ashes, dust to dust-up.
Mark Cuban is punching back against a gem expert who called one of his companies “nothing more than a scam.”
In October, a company called Eterneva — which claims to turn loved ones’ ashes into diamonds — appeared on ABC’s “Shark Tank.” The founders convinced Cuban to buy 9 percent of the business for $600,000.
But shortly after the episode aired, gemologist Grant Mobley claimed to Page Six Style that the company is not what it seems.
“It is a shame to see that Cuban agreed to invest in Eterneva,” Mobley, who is also head of US trade for the Diamond Producers Association, said at the time. “Companies like Eterneva that claim to make synthetic diamonds out of human ashes have been around for more than a decade. But after further research into the process, it has become well-known within the jewelry industry that these companies are nothing more than a scam.”
Mobley claimed that there’s no way there could be enough carbon left after a cremation to make a diamond — so when grieving families pay “much more than the cost of a natural diamond of the same size and quality” for rocks from Eterneva and companies like it, they’re “left with a synthetic diamond that has no value and no ties to the ashes of a loved one.”
But now billionaire investor Cuban has returned fire, telling Page Six that “the technology is backed by rock-solid science.”
The company told us that it has worked with multiple third-party chemistry labs, and that the tests have shown “on average [there’s] 1 to 4 percent carbon content [in the ashes], which is more than enough to grow a diamond.”
Cuban told us that in spite of the controversy, “one of the deals I was most excited about closing from this season of ‘Shark Tank’ is Eterneva.” He added, “I’m a big believer in their product . . . I’m such a fan that I decided to get my wife Eterneva diamonds for Christmas. I can’t say enough good things about Eterneva.”
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