Back in the beginning of 2015, CBE published its first story on the “10 Most Important Companies in the Cannabis Industry”. At that time, the excitement generated by legal cannabis was overwhelming. We identified companies that we thought would lead the way as the rapidly growing industry followed the path of statewide legalization; first for medical marijuana, and then under a regulatory environment that resulted from the first year of adult-use legalization in Colorado and Washington.
The 10 companies on the original list were selected based on the following criteria…
…and felt good about using this criteria again for the 2016 list. One difference between the lists is that we are not ranking listees this year, but we are emphasizing the market footprint and management continuity.
That said, CBE would be remiss if we didn’t mention the fate of six companies that are not repeating before saluting this year’s 10 companies that made this year’s list.
Two of the original companies, Apeks Supercritical and MJ Freeway are doing well and are still leaders of their respective categories, but their industry categories, extraction equipment and software respectively are competitively very crowded. They both still boast the original management teams and have accomplished a great deal—Apeks opened a 65,000 sq. ft. HQ facility in 2015 and MJ Freeway won the heavily contested Nevada tracking software contract.
Denver Relief Consulting also accomplished quite a bit in the last year, but sold its retail and grow operations. They are mentoring several cannabis companies that they have either invested in or received shares. Denver Relief Consulting is leading the charge in Colorado to champion the cause of socially responsible consumption and the legalization of facilities to allow for it.
The Clinic also experienced growth under CEO Max Cohen and his team. They are now operating successfully in (the slower ramp up than anticipated) Illinois and thriving in their home state of Colorado.
Others have fallen short, at least in the short-term.
Surna, which has had four different CEOs since posting the original list, experienced revenue growth, but not to the degree that CBE anticipated. Additionally, they scrapped an agreement to purchase Agrisoft, a seed-to-sale software company that was later purchased by Kind Financial. Then, CEO Tom Bollich departed shortly there after. We will continue to follow Surna and the work that current CEO Trent Doucet and his team are doing.
Privateer Holdings generated a lot of excitement with the multi-million dollars of investment that Founders Fund Peter Thiel made. They suffered setbacks with their investments in Tilray, a Canadian medical marijuana producer and distributor, which laid off more than 60 employees in the summer of 2015, as reported by Marijuana Business Daily. They also found newly Vancouver licensed dispensaries poaching on their turf and teamed with the Nanaimo Royal Canadian Mounted Police to go after those violating federal law. They invested heavily in establishing Leafly as a go-to media brand for cannabis consumers and have a 30 year licensing agreement to license Marley Natural. The book is still open on both of these transactions.
This year’s listees all have something in common with the exception of GW Pharmaceutical—a repeater from the 2015 list that recently announced a successful phase 3 trial for Epidilox—and The Scott’s Miracle-Gro Company, which was added to the list based on significant investments made to add a growth segment to its portfolio of holdings in the industry. Over the last 18 months, Scott’s reportedly spent somewhere around $300 million purchasing 75% of the lighting company Gavita, the industry leader in High Pressure Sodium (HPS) solutions; General Hydrophonics; and Botanicare over the last 18 months. CEO Jim Hagedorn has set up a subsidiary run by his son Chris Hagedorn, to oversee their cannabis related portfolio.
The other 8 companies come from the ranks of licensed PPR’s and one cultivation management company that all have significant footprints, either in their home states (LivWell, Native Roots, Harborside); or as in the case of Bhang Corporation, Dixie Brands, MJardin and O.penVAPE, in multiple states. CBE has actually recently done updates on most of these companies, and they are accessible via the list below.
On behalf of CBE Press, I want to congratulate all of the 2016 companies, their management and their talented staff and investors for their devotion to building best practices, unique and innovative business models to navigate the complex regulatory environment, and for building companies that are leading the way for the entire Cannabis Industry.
Rob Meagher, CBE’s Founder, President and Editor-in-Chief is a 30 year veteran of the media world. His career has spanned from stints representing the Washington Post, USA Weekend, Reader’s Digest, Financial World & Corporate Finance to the technology world where he worked at International Data Group and Ziff Davis where he was part of the launch team for The Web Magazine, Yahoo Internet Life, Smart Business and Expedia Travels before starting his own marketing and Publisher’s Representative Firm. He also ran all print and online media sales and marketing for the Society for Human Resource Management before partnering with Forbes and then Fortune to create Special Sections covering a variety of topics. Rob, who started CBE Press in 2014, can be contacted at [email protected].
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Name *
Email *
Website
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Comment *
Notify me of follow-up comments by email.
Notify me of new posts by email.
Δ
Salisbury, Massachusetts-based Root & Bloom is a locally and independently owned producer of quality cannabis products whose relatively recent entrance into a quickly maturing Massachusetts market has resulted in a…
Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered a review of the way New York State licenses cannabis businesses after calling the sluggish rollout of legal cannabis a “disaster.” Gov. Kathy Hochul has told…
By Vince Sliwoski, Managing Partner of Harris Sliwoski It looks like a permanent Oregon cannabis license moratorium will finally take effect. I say “looks like” because key contingencies are still in…
Morocco’s first legal cannabis harvest was 294 metric tons in 2023, after the country approved its cultivation and export for medicine and industrial uses, the cannabis regulator has said said. The harvest was made…