A venture capital company has paid £150,000 for recycle.co.uk, the highest amount ever paid for a UK web address.

The investment made by ASAP Ventures beats the previous record of £120,000, paid by retailer Sainsbury's in 1997 for taste.co.uk.

ASAP intends to use its new website to provide information on recycling.

The firm is no stranger to forking out large sums for web addresses. It recently bought Fly.co.uk for £87,500.

Nora Nanayakkara, from Sedo, the company behind the auction of recycle.co.uk, said: "We are seeing a growing interest in the purchase of co.uk internet domain names in the secondary market.

"Over six million co.uk internet domain names are already registered and there is a shortage of available quality names. This is driving the sale of high value generic names, such as recycle.co.uk."

The global record for a domain name sale is $12m or £5.7m, paid in 2006 for sex.com.

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