Medical device maker and healthcare technology company Semler Scientific announced Tuesday it plans to buy bitcoin with its cash reserves and, almost immediately, the company's shares rose by as much as 27%.

Semler Scientific's board of directors had "adopted bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset" and "purchased 581 bitcoins for an aggregate amount of $40 million, inclusive of fees and expenses," the company said.

After closing at $23.32 per share on Friday (U.S. markets were closed Monday), Semler Scientific's stock shot up 27% on Tuesday, at one point changing hands at $29.50 a share, according to Yahoo Finance. That would put the market capitalization of all of Semler Scietific's shares was worth a little more than $200 million at the time of publication.  

"Our …