Illinois Women in Cannabis conference, mushrooms in the mainstream, Grown In's founding board of advisors and more!
In this Issue
Equal Opportunity in Cannabis conference aims to educate all types
As psilocybin decriminalizes, investors eye market opportunities
Grown In Inc. announces board of advisors
Cannabis Company Tracker: Cresco Labs, Fyllo, PharmaCann
Roll Call: Dirk Van de Put, Kirsten Velasco, Zachary Zises
Equal Opportunity in Cannabis conference aims to educate all types
Embryonic industries such as commercial cannabis typically attract professionals who no longer care to work within the status quo.
In Illinois, pioneers who piloted medical marijuana programs a half decade ago are now welcoming second movers - no longer stunted by stigma - who believe there is money to be made doing something cool.
“Part of what makes our events so successful is that there just isn’t a type,” explains Dina Rollman, founder and president of Illinois Women in Cannabis (IWC).
“First-timers typically walk into our events carefully, not sure who’s in the room. Then they look around, take a deep breath, and smile.”
Rollman, who co-founded IWC in 2015 with Wendy Berger, is the senior vice president of regulatory and government affairs for Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries (GTI). She will moderate one of six breakout panels at the Equal Opportunity in the Cannabis Industry conference IWC is hosting on February 22 at Kent Law School.
After a 15-year career in commercial litigation, Rollman was recruited by GTI co-founder and CEO Ben Kovler in 2015 to help write dispensary applications for the company, which is now publicly traded and cultivates, processes and merchandises cannabis in multiple states.
While traveling to Colorado in those early days, she observed “a lot of white men” running the companies that were created to take advantage of Colorado’s first to go legal market opportunities.
“There was no diversity at all,” she said.
The February 22 event will feature a keynote presentation by Illinois State Senator Celina Villanueva, and include smaller sessions ranging from “Practical Legal Issues in the Cannabis Industry” to “Social Equity Opportunities and Resources.” Cannabis culinary celebrities Mindy Segal of Mindy’s Edibles and Joline Rivera of Kitchen Toke will also be on hand.
A 2020 goal for her organization is to create more opportunities for women to sit on cannabis company board seats. Berger is a board director at GTI. Cresco Labs, the other publicly traded cannabis company in Illinois, lists all male directors on its website.
Men are of course invited, and typically comprise about half the audience of IWC education and networking events.
A notable topic discussed at events is the fact that the fastest growing demographic cohort of medical and recreational cannabis consumption is women over the age of 45. Companies with representative C-suites, it seems, should benefit from commercial competitive advantages.
“We are seeing a shift in society as a whole,” says IWC director Carrie Armour, “As these companies are forming, this is a great time for them to meet the moment."
Armour, a former senior legislative attorney with the American Medical Association who now advocates for dozens of commercial cannabis companies, is now seeing professionals from advertising, security, accounting and a myriad of other industries bring energy and expertise to this new sector.
“Many people have taken off time in their careers and are looking to get back into a professional space,” she said. “There is a ton of curiosity and desire to collaborate.”
As psilocybin decriminalizes, investors eye market opportunities
Denver, Oakland and Santa Cruz have decriminalized psilocybin - the active ingredient in psychadelic mushrooms. Chicago could be next.
Alderman Brian Hopkins (2nd Ward) recently introduced a resolution to decriminalize entheogenic plants in the city, citing its healing potential for ailments including PTSD and chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Similar to cannabis, psilocybin is considered a Schedule I substance by the federal government and accordingly is a crime to consume, purchase or study (except under very tightly controlled conditions).
A confluence of liberalizing FDA restrictions, mainstreaming by the likes of Michael Pollan and Gwyneth Paltrow, and criminal justice reform efforts will likely lead to more municipal decriminalization and basic research and development funding.
So how are investors eyeing this market?
“There is a whole audience waiting to see these compounds become available,” said Andrew Pendrill, the Scarsdale, New York-based CEO of EI Ventures, a new platform portfolio company of Hawaii-based biotech holding company Orthogonal Thinker, which focuses on psilocybin-focused investments. “I think every player in the industry is doing the right thing working to get clinical data, and prove to the authorities that this works.”
A former pharmaceutical executive, Pendrill noted that decriminalization is only an initial step. Such is the case with the cannabis industry, significant research and development is hindered by federal law, but beginning to thrive internationally in countries including Israel and England.
There is a growing albeit nascent community of investors in this space. Peter Thiel’s London-based company Compass Pathways has United States FDA approval to study the plant’s potential impact to treat depression.
Vancouver-based Codebase Ventures last month announced its first investment via its Titan Shrooms and Psychedelics Inc. subsidiary, in Netherlands-based Red Light Holland Corp. The company notes press release that it is “actively seeking investment opportunities at the forefront of the mushroom and micro-dosing psychedelic healthcare sector.”
The Illinois-based cannabis investors queried on the subject are taking a wait-and-see approach to any commercial Cryptical Envelopment opportunities.
Progress here, of course, figures to be nonlinear.
Grown In Inc. announces board of advisors
Though newsletters and upcoming online and offline programs, Grown In is creating the connective tissue for the Illinois cannabis community.
If you like this newsletter, please share! If somebody forwarded you Grown In: Illinois, you are encouraged to subscribe to our free email weekly newsletter here.
Last week we announced that veteran media entrepreneur and executive Mike Fourcher joined in as co-founder to develop and oversee business operations. We are now pleased to announce our founding board advisors.
Andy Crestodina: Chief Marketing Officer and Co-founder, Orbit Media.
Acasia Wilson Feinberg: Director of Growth, Danielson Group.
David Friedman, Chief Executive Officer, Panther Capital
Scott McMillin, Co-founder, Shop Local
Anton Seals, Executive Director at Grow Greater Englewood
Joyce Winnecke, Board President, YWCA Chicago; media executive
We appreciate the wisdom, kindness and networks of our advisors and growing community.
Cannabis Company Tracker: Cresco Labs, Fyllo, PharmaCann
Each week, Grown In: Illinois shares a thing or two about the largest cannabis companies in the country that just so happened to be based in The Land of Lincoln.
Cresco Labs
More than one year after initially coming to terms on the deal, Chicago-based Cresco Labs last week announced that it had formally acquired Hope Heal Health, which operates a dispensary license in eastern Massachusetts and has rights to two additional dispensary licenses as well a clearance to cultivate and produce cannabis products in the state. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Fyllo
Marketing software company Fyllo, which is based in the West Loop and last year raised $18 million to address messaging and distribution compliance issues associated with cannabis advertising, is expanding its presence in New York.
The company moved to new offices in DUMBO Heights, and plans to double its NYC employee count to 20.
PharmaCann
PharmaCann, which was awarded multiple dispensary locations in Chicago, has designs on opening up in a landmarked location in River North.
The Oak Park-based company last week shared plans to convert the Veseman Building at 444 N. LaSalle to a dispensary during a public community meeting at nearby Maggiano’s Little Italy.
Multiple dispensaries with rights to open up additional locations in coveted River North include Cresco Labs, MOCA Modern Cannabis and Greenhouse Group.
Roll Call: Dirk Van de Put, Kirsten Velasco, Zachary Zises
A few words about three pioneers and personalities impacting Illinois-based cannabis industries.
Dirk Van de Put
The CEO of Mondelez International, the Deerfield-based maker of Oreos and Ritz Crackers, is investigating how to thoughtfully infuse CBD into the company's product line. Van de Put, who this week spoke the local business and civic leaders at the Economic Club of Chicago, last year told CNBC that the convergence of CBD and Big Food will occur "in the not too distant future."
Kirsten Velasco
As Illinois outreach director for the Medical Cannabis Community, Kirsten Velasco lectures, consults and evangelizes on the myriad ways cannabis can be incorporated for medical treatment and overall wellnessIllinois among other states have growing communities of patients, advocates and healthcare where individuals share advice and best practices with one another. Velasco is also a board director of Illinois Women in Cannabis, and will moderate a Cannabis 101 panel during the organization’s February 22 education conference.
Zach Zises
A longtime trader at the Chicago Board of Trade, Zachary Zises in 2015 became the first dispensary owner in Chicago when he opened up Dispensary 33 in Andersonville. The company has the license to open an additional dispensary in Chicago.An independently-minded serial entrepreneur who majored in Rhetoric at University of California, Berkeley, Zisses is a proactive community partner who organized a coalition of local businesses to provide entertainment, shopping and culinary options for customers who wait hours to purchase product from his location.
The store’s vibe is so welcoming that girl scouts find it a good place to sell cookies.