Minnesota MMJ company seeking $31.5M for expansion

Talk about planning big.

Minnesota-based Vireo Health, the parent company of Minnesota Medical Solutions, announced this week that it’s attempting to raise $31.5 million in equity financing in order to fund expansion into between 17 and 20 new states, according to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.

The company already has a presence in New York, where it won one of just five MMJ business licenses the state awarded last July. But now, Vireo is targeting Maryland, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida, according to the Journal. All of those except Maryland still prohibit traditional MMJ, and at best have only legalized the production of CBD medicine.

To that same end, Vireo also plans to get approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for cannabis-based medicines it has in development.

On the fundraising end, Vireo CEO Kyle Kingsley told the Journal that he’s got 400-500 individual investors “in the pipeline with us.” Kingsley said the company is already close to raising $6 million of its new goal, on top of $16.6 million it had previously raised.