Marijuana Business Magazine - April 2018

Nuuvera, we felt the market truly didn’t understand the business model, because it was different than anything the space had seen. And with CannTrust, we thought that they were being viewed in the wrong light. People didn’t understand their medical focus. People didn’t under- stand how high quality a grower they were. And so you’re able to pick these assets up cheaply because the market didn’t really understand what it was looking at. Q What’s your biggest investment mistake? A Stiefel: Not being in this space sooner. John and I had been looking at the space a year prior and the opportuni- ties back then were still fantastic, and we’re frustrated that we weren’t bigger investors in 2016. Q What is your best cannabis investing tip? A Stiefel: Never be too big in any one position. And really make sure you’re not missing anything. This industry is evolving so rapidly that one law or one change or one company not operating to the governmental standards, you could be totally shut out. A Kaden: Do your due diligence. If a management team says they have a facility somewhere, don’t take that for granted and just accept it. Do your work, check it yourself, because we’ve seen crazy things. Q What product or sector are you most excited about? A Stiefel: We’re focused on what the user will ultimately be consuming. At the end of the day, this isn’t a market about growing or agriculture, it’s about what the consumer is ending up with. So, as this industry matures, we’re looking further down the distribution line to see who’s making the best edibles, who’s making the best oils and who’s able to capture that margin for the end user. An interesting company is Alliance One (International). They’re known as a tobacco company but they just acquired two licensed producers in Canada, and they’re pivoting their business. That’s a tremendous opportunity, given what the scale of the company is already. Q What’s your biggest goal for the next 12 months? A Stiefel: To really scale the business. We’re doing more and more investing in different parts of the world, so it’s critical that we’re able to scale and due diligence the opportunities that we’re seeing in Europe, in South America, and Asia and Australia. A Kaden: Canada is still far and away the leader in the space and Australia second. The fact is, where you have federal legal clarity, there are just better investment opportunities than where you don’t, and the U.S. will always be second fiddle until they get their laws straight. B¬G H¬TS Willie Nelson Lands $12 Million Country music star Willie Nelson’s cannabis company, GCH, secured $12 million to expand into new markets. GCH plans to enter Califor- nia with its Willie’s Reserve brand during the spring of 2018. It already has products avail- able in Colorado, Oregon, Nevada and Wash- ington state. Kush Bottles Secures $6 Million Kush Bottles, a California cannabis pack- aging company, entered a partnership with Maryland-based marijuana infrastructure fund Merida Capital Partners, which includes a $6 million investment. Israeli Tech Company Scores $2.3 Million GemmaCert, a Tel Aviv company working on a commercial-scale cannabis analyzer, com- pleted a $2.3 million Series A-1 round of fund- ing. GemmaCert, founded in 2015, has raised more than $3 million. Cultivation Data Provider Nets $2 Million Braingrid Corp., a Toronto company that has created a sensor system that provides real-time data for cultivators, raised $2 million (CA$2.6 million) in a private placement. The company will use the proceeds for research, marketing and customer acquisition. Number of Note: $1.23 billion Investors pumped $1.23 billion into the legal cannabis industry during the first five weeks of 2018, nearly matching the $1.29 billion invested in all of 2016. The numbers come from New York-based Viridian Capital Advisors, which tracks MJ-related investments. ◆ – Omar Sacirbey $ $ $ $ $ April 2018 • Marijuana Business Magazine • 13