When Jessica Billingsley announced in October 2018 that she was taking Denver-based cannabis technology company MJ Freeway public by merging it with a so-called “blank-check” company, she was on the vanguard of an increasingly popular way for privately held companies to begin trading on public stock exchanges.
Marijuana businesses have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in recent months, a trend that is expected to continue as an investment dry spell that began late last year appears to be easing.
Innovative Industrial Properties is on a marijuana shopping spree, having spent $100 million since April to buy cultivation and distribution facilities around the nation while providing cannabis operators with sorely needed cash.
Marijuana entrepreneurs seeking to open a business face a similar type of roadblock in virtually any U.S. market: municipal zoning regulations, which can be difficult and annoying.
