Marijuana Business Magazine October 2018

B¬G H¬TS Surterra Lands $65 Million Funding Led by Wrigley Chewing Gum Heir Medical marijuana firm Surterra Wellness is poised for expansion after a $65 million funding round led by chewing gum billionaire William “Beau” Wrigley Jr. The Series C direct equity investment brings Surterra’s total capital raised to more than $100 million since 2015. Surterra operates medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities in Florida as well as CBD dispensaries and grow operations in Texas. The company plans to use the new capital to bolster those operations and expand into other states. Additionally, Surterra announced that Wrigley will join the company’s board as chair. An heir and former CEO of The Wrigley Co. chewing gum giant, Wrigley amassed his fortune in part by selling the family business to the Mars candy company in 2008 in a $23 billion cash deal, according to Forbes. Vireo Health Raises $16 Million, Plans to Go Public in Canada Minneapolis-based Vireo Health raised $16 million ahead of its plans to take the company public on the Canadian Securities Exchange. The firm completed a private place- ment of more than 357,000 of its Series D shares, yielding gross proceeds of $16 million. A final portion of the offering was expected to close in the coming weeks, which would bring the total amount raised to $17.2 million. Vireo, which has subsidiary firms in Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania, plans to use the capital to expand in its existing U.S. locations and move into new markets. The offering also will allow the company to “execute on our aggressive growth plans leading to a public listing in Canada,” according to Kyle Kingsley, Vireo’s chairman and CEO. Manitoba First Nation Lends $27 Million to Marijuana Retailer A Manitoba First Nation has agreed to lend $26.6 million (CA$35 million) to a Canadian cannabis firm to tap into the country’s new recreational market. Ottawa-based National Access Cannabis has landed the financing from Opask- wayak Cree Nation, located northwest of Winnipeg, Mani- toba. National Access plans to use the funds to build out 50-70 cannabis retail locations across Western Canada, the company said in a news release. It eventually plans to open as many as 100 stores. Number of Note: $8 Billion Marijuana companies across the globe are on pace to raise a record $8 billion by the end of 2018, as more com- panies go public and scale to meet growing demand, an analysis of recently released market data shows. Through the end of June, cannabis companies raised a record $4.3 billion – more than triple the amount of funding in 2017, according to Viridian Capital Advisors. ◆ Q What’s the best cannabis investment you’ve made and why? A Among our portfolio companies, BDS Analytics, Wurk and Front Range Biosciences are all CanopyBoulder investments and are all doing very well in their respective niches. But they are just a few of the CanopyBoulder alumni that are performing well in the market. The best investment we’ve made is launching CanopyBoulder. We had to capitalize the company first, and that was a significant commitment in time and money, spread over the period of about a year. During this time, we undertook a comprehensive review of the cannabis industry and looked for a problem that we could solve where we would also contribute to the long-term viability and profitability of the cannabis industry. It was quite an investment to start. Q What attracted you to those companies? A Each of these three companies are “racetracks” versus “racehorses,” meaning as the greater industry does well, the companies do well. They all provide critical infrastructure and services to the industry that span all cannabis markets in the U.S. and beyond. But each group has a really strong team, and in any early stage investing, the quality of the team is paramount. Q What’s your biggest investment mistake and how did you overcome it? A I invested a small amount of my personal capital into a publicly traded social network for the cannabis industry. I regret that. The lesson learned was that the only sound investment strategy in the cannabis industry is through diversification. Simple as that. October 2018 • Marijuana Business Magazine • 13