Company Name: Canna Security America
Year Founded: 2010
Ownership Structure: Private Company Incorporated in Colorado (CSA LLC)
CEO: Dan Williams and 12 investor partners
Headquarters: Denver
Website: http://cannasecurity.com/
Industry Segment/Category: Security Services Provider
Current Markets/States Served: AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, MA, ME, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA
130 Active clients in 370 facilities
Current Number of employees: 14 fulltime, 130 plus sub-contractors
2014 Current Revenues: $760,000
Expansion Plans: AK, Il, NV, adding armed guard services to portfolio of product and service offerings,
Going public in next 60 days to raise additional capital to fund growth.
Financing strategy: Raised $850,000 through Arcview Investor Network
Primary Competitors: Blue Line Security, Cannaguard Security, MPSI
Timing is everything and the time is now for Canna Security America
Canna Security America (CSA) was created in 2009 by CEO Dan Williams and officially launched in March 2010 to meet the growing needs and peculiarities of the evolving Medical Marijuana industry from both a legal, regulatory compliance and security aspect.
From their inception, CSA has offered commercial-grade equipment installed by certified technicians at discount prices. Best practices include handling all aspects of installation through a network of subcontractors and have provided free service for 60 days following installation completion, as well as a 1-year warranty on all equipment.
CSA now services over 130 clients and their 370 plus facilities in 13 legal marijuana states and is currently consulting with new clients in Alaska, Illinois and Nevada that are preparing to roll-out recreational or medical facilities in the coming months.
CSA was one of the Arcview Investor Networks earliest funded start-ups, Dan and his Director of Sales, Chris Jensen, were part of a group of entrepreneurs that pitched at the 2nd ArcTank and, with the assistance of Steve Berg, crafted their presentation and pro forma investment package that raised $850,000 from owner partners that include Tripp Keber of Dixie Elixirs. Dixie was also one of CSA’s original clients. Other large clients (85 percent of whom are located in Colorado) include The Clinic, Cloud 9, and CAM.
They have, to date, focused on providing soft security services; the bulk of their clients have hired CSA to supply alarm systems, door access systems, and camera and video surveillance but are adding armed guards and armored transport services in March 2015. They have hired Josh Ray, who has written many SWAT’ armored car security operating manuals around the country, to head-up their physical security efforts nationally. Currently, they are investing in Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans complete with satellite feeds, and guards that are fully equipped with body cameras, to provide state of the art services that are being demanded by potential customers.
New customers are also asking for additional state of the art technology solutions like GPS tagging, iris scanners, and outdoor motion detectors.
With the majority of thefts of coming from internal sources, CSA is devising high and low tech integrated solutions that combine both soft and physical security to minimize the cost associated with internal theft.
Dan expects these additional security offerings will generate much larger and higher margin revenues for CSA versus the labor intensive, subcontractor heavy services that have helped CSA to the point of raising additional capital through a reverse merger in Q2 2015.
To fund their new physical security staff and equipment efforts, CSA is in the process of a reverse merger (with the agreement expected to close this past week) with Asta Holdings. The new entity — Canna Security America, Inc. — will be listed on the OTC market and has a valuation of $30 million, which is up significantly from the premerger valuation of $20 million. The original valuation when they sourced $850,000 from the ArcView Investor Network back in 2009 was $4 million.
CBE believes that start-up security solution providers like CSA, Blue Line and Cannaguard have a few more years to gobble up market share and revenues before a turnkey banking solution comes to fruition, and maybe a couple of additional years before the larger national security entities jump in (and that probably won’t occur before federal rescheduling or descheduling occurs). Either way, timing is everything and now is the time for CSA to execute the next steps in their strategy to become the No. 1 security provider in the Cannabis Industry.
