Marijuana Business Magazine - January 2017

What is the biggest cannabis investment mistake you’ve made, and what lesson did you learn? Our worst investment was in Colorado. But that has nothing to do with the investment but rather the regula- tory oversight and the fact that Colorado regulators don’t allow for outright ownership of a license. So, we’ve had to do unbelievably convoluted things to put capital to work in Colorado because we can’t own a license. As compelling as Colorado is and as compelling as it would be to put lots of money to work there, we did an initial small investment hoping that the structure we had used would be approved by regulators. We did that a year ago, and it still hasn’t been approved. The lesson learned from that worst case is that some guy you never heard of, who’s not an elected official, who just wakes up on the wrong side of bed, can make your life miserable. What is the best investing tip you can share? The best thing we’ve done is buy cash registers – to buy licenses. Our best investment is that any time somebody is MedMen Seeks $250 Million Fund MedMen, based in Los Angeles, aims to raise $250 million to invest in cannabis businesses in California, Nevada and New York. The marijuana management and investment firm’s new fund, MedMen Opportunity Fund II, will target plant-touching companies, including retailers and growers. If successful, it would be the biggest raise in the cannabis industry to date. Poseidon Launches $150 Million Fund Poseidon Asset Management – a San Francisco invest- ment company focused on the cannabis industry – has launched a second fund with the goal of raising $100 million-$150 million. If successful, the investment fund would be one of the marijuana industry’s largest. LeafLink Lands $10 Million LeafLink, an online inventory and ordering platform for marijuana businesses, raised $10 million in Series A fund- ing. Nosara Capital, a London venture capital firm, led the round. The funding follows a $3 million raise in April led by Lerer Hippeau Ventures, which invested in the popular news website Buzzfeed. Aurora Gets Busy Aurora Cannabis has arranged a private placement of its securities to raise $80 million (CA$100 million), giving the Alberta, Canada, marijuana producer a cash cushion totaling more than $268 million. The cash-rich company has been steamrolling ahead with aggressive domestic and international expansion plans. Hydropothecary Strikes Deal to Raise $50 million Hydropothecary, a licensed marijuana producer in Quebec, Canada, has reached a deal to raise at least $50 million (CA$60 million) that it plans to put toward working capital and general corporate purposes. Under the so-called bought deal transaction, a group of underwriters has agreed to pur- chase 60,000 units of Hydropothecary convertible deben- tures. The convertible debentures can be turned into stock. Number of Note: $1.8 billion Capital raises in the global cannabis industry reached a whopping $1.8 billion in the first three quarters of 2017, up from $720 million a year ago, according to Viridian Capital Advisors’ Cannabis Deal Tracker. The raises are a compila- tion of deals brokered by 164 public companies and 105 private ones, with an average raise of $6.7 million. ◆ — Omar Sacirbey going to buy medical or recreational cannabis in the United States, we want our investors to benefit from that. Our best investment is in a license to sell cannabis in an oligopoly state, a state with a restricted number of licenses. What is your top goal for the coming year? We would like to show revenue in Massachusetts and revenue in New York. We’d like to look like a real operating company. Right now we look like a collection of opportunities. A year from now, I’d like to be saying, “Same-store growth quarter over quarter was X, and we’ve opened four new stores in these counties.” I want our earnings calls to sound like Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts. Your company has raised about $55 million to date. How have you spent that capital? We’ve spent the most money in Massachusetts and the second most in Colorado, followed by New Mexico, Vermont, Florida and New York. ◆ Big Hits January 2018 • Marijuana Business Magazine • 13