Cannabis Startups and Market Landscape

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Cannabis News:

Bang Holdings Corp. announced that it is aggressively targeting the enormous cannabis advertising void created by Google, whose restrictive advertising policies prohibit cannabis-related companies. After almost two years and more than a million dollars invested in building the first major digital advertising network to service the cannabis industry, Bang went public last month.

Second annual CannaTech conference brings hundreds of delegates from 15 countries to see what Israeli ‘cannapreneurs’ can offer them.

A new study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that in states with legalized marijuana, prescription painkiller deaths have reduced, on average, 20%.

12 celebrities in the marijuana business

The size of the market for legal marijuana in the United States is projected to grow to $7.1 billion in 2016, according to a report by New Frontier and ArcView Market Research. That represents 26% growth over the previous year, driven largely by adult recreational sales of marijuana, the researchers found.

CB Insights:

In April 2016, Pennsylvania became the 24th state to to legalize medical marijuana. With over 35 million Americans using medical marijuana each year, cannabis legalization is at the heart of a national debate — and a host of startups are looking to play a big part in its going mainstream.

Within the growing crop of cannabis startups, company formation and funding is happening across a number of categories, as highlighted below:

Delivery / Subscription eCommerce / Marketplace: Startups in this category include DCM-backed Eaze Solutions, which helps patients receive medical marijuana in California from dispensaries on-demand, as well as Meadow, which recently raised $2.1M for its delivery service and specialized cannabis sales software.

Compliance / Tracking: Startups in the area of cannabis compliance and seed-to-sale tracking software include FlowHub and MJ Freeway, which raised $8M from Tao Capital Partners and Roger McNamee in December 2015.

Transaction / Payments / Banking / Order Management: Companies helping facilitate ordering, payments, and banking of cannabis include Y Combinator-backed SericaPay and bank compliance platform Hypur.

Data / Analytics: Companies offering cannabis industry data as well as medical cannabis lab analytics include BDS Analytics and Steep Hill.

Social Networking: Social networking sites specified for the cannabis market include MassRoots, which recently filed to go public on the NASDAQ.

News / Discovery / Content: Companies helping to deliver news, content or ways to discover cannabis include marijuana dispensary and strain review site Leafly and cannabis lifestyle media site Merry Jane.

Investors / Accelerators / Holdings Cos: Cannabis-specific investors, accelerators and holding companies include Privateer Holdings, which itself has raised $82M from investors including Founders Fund as well as Casa Verde Capital, Snoop Dogg’s cannabis-focused fund.

Products: Startups offering consumer and enterprise cannabis-specific products include marijuana breathalyzer Hound Labs and marijuana packaging supply startup Kush Bottles.

Branding: Startups creating new cannabis brands or offering brand management include Strainz and Suncliff.