The rising stars of marijuana's investment scene that people from Wall Street to Silicon Valley should know
Tahira Rehmatullah began her career as an investment manager at Privateer Holdings before moving to a leadership position at a cannabis-focused venture-capital fund.
Micah Tapman, a former Marine, is a founding partner at accelerator CanopyBoulder, which counts many of the industry's most successful startups among its graduates.
Title: Managing Director, CanopyBoulder
Type: Venture Capital
Location: Boulder, Colorado
CanopyBoulder is an accelerator for seed-stage companies on the ancillary side of the cannabis industry. Founded in 2015, it counts successful startups such as Bloom Automation and Flowhub among its graduates.
The company recently launched a $50 million growth-stage fund under Tapman's management to invest in cannabis startups in the ag-tech, biotech, blockchain, machine learning, and retail tech sectors.
Tapman and his partner, Patrick Rea, have sourced more than 90 deals and helped Canopy alumni raise more than $15 million.
Jeanne Sullivan, a founder of StarVest partners, is championing female entrepreneurs and investors in cannabis.
Title: Chief Inspiration Officer, Sullivan Adventures
Type: Angel Investor
Location: New York City
After nearly two decades serving as a founding partner at New York City-based StarVest Partners, a venture firm focused on early-stage tech companies, Sullivan turned her attention to cannabis in 2014.
Sullivan has made angel investments in a number of cannabis companies owned by women, and she is a frequent speaker at cannabis-industry events. She is also part of the Arcview Group, a networking body that connects budding entrepreneurs with investors.
Karan Wadhera runs a marijuana-focused venture fund in partnership with Snoop Dogg.
Title: Managing Partner, Casa Verde Capital
Type: Venture Capital
Location: Los Angeles
Wadhera, a veteran of Goldman Sachs and Nomura, partnered with the rapper Snoop Dogg in 2015 to invest in early-stage cannabis companies that "don't touch the plant" but instead provide software and services to the burgeoning space.
Casa Verde's portfolio includes Leaflink, a commerce platform for cannabis dispensaries, and Cannalysis, a lab-testing company for medical and recreational marijuana. The firm has made seven investments in the industry so far.
The firm recently closed a $45 million fund.
Todd Harrison, a Wall Street veteran, is investing in the health and wellness side of the cannabis industry.
Title: Founding Partner and Chief Investment Officer, CB1 Capital
Type: Hedge Fund
Location: New York City
Todd Harrison founded CB1 Capital in 2017 — named after a cannabinoid receptor in the human brain — as a "cannabinoid wellness" emerging healthcare hedge fund.
CB1 trades public securities in companies working on medicinal cannabinoids, which Harrison told Business Insider is poised to "disrupt the healthcare industry." The firm launched its first fund, the CB1 Wellness Fund, in November.
Harrison is a Wall Street veteran with three decades of experience, including on Morgan Stanley's derivatives desk.
Joanne Wilson has invested in a range of consumer-focused cannabis startups.
Title: Angel investor, Gotham Gal
Type: Angel Investor
Location: New York City
Wilson, a prominent New York City-based angel investor, has made two angel investments in the cannabis industry.
She put money into Octavia Wellness, a startup that offers direct-to-consumer cannabis products to seniors, and Beboe, which offers high-end cannabis products.
"It's all about the consumer products," Wilson said.
Sean Stiefel and John Kaden founded Navy Capital, the first hedge fund focused on strategic, long-term investments in public cannabis companies.
Title: Sean Stiefel, partner, and John Kaden, Chief Investment Officer
Type: Hedge Fund
Location: New York City
When Sean Stiefel, a former trader, started Navy Capital in 2014, he envisioned it as a tech-focused hedge fund. But after seeing the huge opportunity in legal cannabis, the firm launched its Green Fund in 2017.
With $70 million under management, the fund finished 2017 with strong returns and crushed its main benchmarks, according to Kaden, who serves as Navy's chief investment officer.
Brendan Kennedy cofounded Privateer in 2011 as one of the first private-equity firms dedicated to cannabis.
Title: CEO, Privateer Holdings
Type: Private Equity
Location: Seattle
Privateer, a holding company for the cannabis industry, is the second-highest-valued firm in the cannabis industry. The company has taken venture funding from the likes of Peter Thiel, and counts Tilray, Leafly, Marley Natural, and the Good Ship among its portfolio companies.
Under Kennedy's leadership, Privateer closed a $100 million Series C in January, bringing the total funding to $200 million.
Kennedy, another Yale School of Management graduate in the cannabis industry, told Business Insider that each of the company's founders have pledged to donate $5 million of equity to help communities harmed by cannabis prohibition.
"It's important that the social consciousness is in the DNA for each of our portfolio companies," Kennedy said.
Tuatara Capital is an industry-leading private-equity firm focused on all aspects of the legal-cannabis industry.
Title: Managing Partners, Tuatara Capital: Al Foreman, Mark Zittman, and Marc Riiska
Type: Private Equity
Location: New York City
Tuatara's management team focuses on investments in all sectors of the legal-cannabis industry, from cultivation to retail.
The firm raised $93 million in 2016 to invest in cannabis, and Marc Riiska, a partner, recently led a $12.3 million financing round into Teewinot Life Sciences, a biopharma company focusing on medicinal marijuana.
"Tuatara's work vetting companies and then, so much more importantly, supporting their portfolio companies with strategic guidance and hands-on support makes them a positively impactful and truly important financial and strategic partner for the cannabis industry as a whole," Alana Malone, founder of cannabis-oil producer Green Dot Labs, told Business Insider.
Lori Ferrara left a stable career in TV distribution to back cannabis companies as an angel investor. She became the first female investor at ArcView in 2013.
Title: Founder of Alexava Holdings Inc. and LJF Investments
Type: Angel Investor
Location: Chicago
Ferrara found a passion for the marijuana industry in 2012 while caring for her husband, who was recovering from cancer.
Ferrara started two companies that invest in marijuana-related businesses, including packaging suppliers and hemp-infused pet products. She's also a founding board member of the Illinois Cannabis Industry Association.
Morgan and Emily Paxhia are a brother-sister team who started investing in cannabis after they lost their father to cancer and realized medicinal cannabis could have helped him.
Title: Cofounders, Poseidon Asset Management
Type: Hedge Fund
Location: San Francisco
Through their firm, Poseidon Asset Management, the Paxhia siblings have invested in a diverse portfolio of cannabis companies across the ag-tech, cultivation, compliance, and industrial hemp sectors.
Both have also emerged as thought leaders in the cannabis industry, speaking on panels and offering advice to entrepreneurs.
Poseidon's fund has received a host of awards, including the coveted Barclay Hedge award, for its performance in the cannabis sector.
Hadley Ford, a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs and a Wall Street veteran, started iAnthus in 2014 after serving as the CEO of ProCure Treatment Centers.
Title: CEO, iAnthus Capital
Type: Investment Firm
Location: New York City
iAnthus owns and operates medicinal marijuana providers in states where the drug is legal.
The firm has a novel approach. Since institutional investors in the US are barred from participating in the cannabis industry, iAnthus pairs Canadian capital with projects and companies in the US that need financing.
The company's portfolio includes Mayflower Medicinals, Citiva, Grassroots Vermont, and GrowHealthy.
Sherri Haskell bridges the gap between accredited investors and carefully vetted marijuana startups as the founder and CEO of her own angel investment consortium.
Title: CEO and founder of Canna Angels LLC
Type: Angel Investor
Location: Sausalito, California
Canna Angels is on a mission to curate the top marijuana-related businesses in agriculture technologies, real estate, genetics, bioscience, and lab-data analytics.
Haskell, a former stockbroker, has raised $150 million in capital in her career. Her portfolio includes Civilized, a digital publication focused on marijuana, and the "Mary Kay for marijuana" startup Octavia Wellness.
Hamish Sutherland's firm invests in and operates cannabis-cultivation facilities for the medicinal and recreational market.
Title: President and CEO, WhiteSheep Corp.
Type: Investment Firm
Location: Toronto
Sutherland founded WhiteSheep Corp in 2016 after serving as the CEO of Bedrocan, a licensed medical-marijuana grower in Canada.
WhiteSheep has invested in a number of cannabis startups, including OBlend, a device that allows users to create their own cannabis oils at home.
Nic Easley has been a force in marijuana investing for over 15 years, and has worked with more than 100 public and private marijuana companies across the globe.
Title: Managing Partner of Multiverse Capital and founder and CEO of 3C Consulting
Type: Venture Capital
Location: Denver
Easley, an Air Force veteran who holds degrees in environmental science and biology builds and funds marijuana-related businesses through his venture firm and consulting company.
"Nic's scientific background, combined with over 15 years of agricultural field and biological experience, offers the industry new possibilities of productivity, profitability, and professionalism," says Robert Hoban, a lawyer and managing partner of Hoban Law Group, which serves clients in the cannabis industry.
After 20 years in traditional investment banking, Brett Finkelstein launched one of the leading cannabis-focused venture firms.
Title: Managing Director, Phyto Partners
Type: Venture Capital
Location: Boca Raton, Florida
With Finkelstein at the helm, Phyto Partners participated in more investment deals than any other venture firm between 2012 and 2017, according to data and research firm Pitchbook. The firm's 12 investment deals include Leaflink, a commerce platform for dispensaries, and Baker, a customer-engagement platform sometimes called the "Salesforce of pot."
In March, Phyto Partners announced a new $100 million fund that will provide capital to companies in the marijuana industry.
Vivien Azer is one of the first senior-level cannabis industry analysts at a major Wall Street investment bank.
Title: Managing Director, Cowen Group
Type: Investment Bank
Location: New York City
Azer, a Wall Street veteran who holds an MBA from New York University, covers the cannabis industry as a senior research analyst for the investment bank Cowen.
Azer's research has been widely disseminated among prominent investors and the media, and her position is a sign that large institutional investors are taking the emerging industry seriously.
Mitch Baruchowitz, a former general counsel for a boutique investment bank, is an expert in the licensing process for states where marijuana is legal.
Title: Managing Partner, Merida Capital
Type: Private Equity
Location: New York City
After spending two decades working on Wall Street, most recently as the general counsel of Pali Capital, Baruchowitz started investing in the cannabis industry through his private-equity firm Merida Capital in 2012.
The firm splits its investments between cultivators, technology services, and pharmaceuticals, and includes companies like Kush Bottles and Simplifiya.
Vahan Ajamian is an analyst who covers the cannabis industry for Beacon Securities.
Title: Research Analyst, Beacon Securities
Type: Investment Banking
Location: Toronto
Ajamian covers the cannabis industry for Beacon Securities, a midsize investment bank based in Toronto. Ajamian's research is widely cited throughout the investment banking world and in the media.
"Vahan is considered by many, if not all, as the top analyst in the marijuana space right now," Jeffrey Watson, director of research at Westcourt Capital Corp., told Business Insider.
Lorne Gertner is considered a "godfather" of the Canadian cannabis industry, and his son, Alan, now runs his own successful cannabis brand.
Title: Alan Gertner, CEO of Hiku Brands, and Lorne Gertner, CEO of Hill and Gertner Capital
Type: Investment Bank
Location: Toronto
The father-son duo has a long history in the cannabis industry. The elder Gertner founded Cannasat Therapeutics, a publicly traded company developing delivery systems for medical marijuana, in 2004 shortly after the Canadian government legalized medical marijuana.
Since then, Lorne Gertner has made a number of investments in the space, including buying up significant shares of Cronos Group, as well as helping his son, Alan, a former Googler, start Tokyo Smoke, an upscale retail brand for cannabis products.
Tokyo Smoke recently went public on the Canadian Securities Exchange (under the name Hiku Brands) after merging with DOJA Cannabis Co., a British Columbia-based cultivator.
Did we miss anyone?
Let us know at jberke@businessinsider.com and mrobinson@businessinsider.com.
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