Marijuana Business Magazine August 2019

Marijuana Business Magazine | August 2019 20 GreenGro’s Land Grab Ancillary firm GreenGro Technologies acquired 4 acres of real estate in Southern California for propagating low-THC, high- CBD hemp seeds. Company executives said seed sales would boost GreenGro's revenue and bottom line. The executives estimated the project would be operational by the third quarter of 2019. GreenGro said the 4 acres could contribute up to $2 million to its 2019 fiscal year bottom line, with seeds bringing in $15,000-$30,000 per pound wholesale. MJ Trade Group Launches Diversity Effort The Cannabis Trade Federation , a national coalition of marijuana- related businesses, formed a task force to develop strategies to increase diversity in the MJ industry. The task force includes civil rights leaders and cannabis industry professionals who will work with CTF board members to develop and implement a diversity, equity and inclusion policy for adoption by the organization’s full board. Upon adoption of the policy, Cannabis Trade Federation- member companies will have to agree to it as a requirement of membership. The panel, which will be chaired by Linda Mercado Greene, owner of a Washington DC medical marijuana dispensary, will be charged with developing benchmarks and goals to measure the industry’s progress. The 26-member task force includes: • Karen Boykin-Towns, NAACP vice chair • Carlos Curbelo, former U.S. congressman • Derrick Johnson, NAACP president and CEO • Marc Morial, National Urban League CEO • Laura Murphy, former director of the Washington DC office of the American Civil Liberties Union • Akele Parnell, Green Thumb Industries corporate counsel Australis Acquisition Australis Capital , a Las Vegas-based investment group that spun off from Canadian giant Aurora Can- nabis, said it will spend roughly $8 million to acquire certain brands and cultivation assets from Nevada’s Green Therapeutics . The deal includes the right to develop a 55,000-square-foot production facility in North Las Vegas with the potential to expand it into a 400,000-square-foot enterprise. The land acquisition involved a separate $2.93 million purchase from Meridian Cos . The brands acquired from Green Ther- apeutics include Tsunami Provisions and GT Flowers. Australis, which trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange, will issue stock worth $6.4 million with an additional $1.6 million dependent on the development and performance goals of the facility. KushCo Partners With C.A. Fortune in CBD Play  KushCo Holdings in Santa Ana, California, announced a partnership with C.A. Fortune , an Illinois-based sales and marketing agency focused on lifestyle-brand partnerships, to provide CBD companies access to large-scale retail channels. The partnership will offer KushCo clients an addi- tional avenue to get their CBD products on the shelves of conventional retailers. C.A. Fortune helps brands achieve nationwide coverage across the grocery, natu- ral, big box and e-commerce channels. MJ Freeway Opens Colombian Office Denver-based MJ Freeway opened an office in Medellín, Colombia, to serve its growing footprint in South America. Clever Leaves , an MJ Freeway client, is the first Colombian company authorized to export cannabis into Canada. Additionally, MJ Freeway, a wholly owned subsidiary of Akerna , a regulatory compliance technology company in the legal cannabis space, is now serving clients in Italy and North Macedonia. North Macedonia approved medical cannabis for cultivation and export, while Italy has significantly increased its hemp production to serve the domestic market for industrial products and infused consumer goods. Innovative AgriProducts Gets GMP Stamp Innovative AgriProducts in Asheboro, North Carolina, announced that the company is Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certified in compliance with dietary supplements. GMP is a system for ensuring that products are consistently produced and controlled according to quality standards. Innovative AgriProducts is a vertically integrated company that provides hand-selected clones to partner farmers, enabling them to trace their oil extract all the way back to the field in which the hemp plants were grown. Artelo Biosciences Closes $8 Million Public Offering Artelo Biosciences , a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company in La Jolla, California, announced the closing of its public offering of 1,300,813 units at a price to the Company News | U.S. & Canada