Jenny Cheng/ Business Insider
Investors are piling into the legal cannabis industry.
As the legal-cannabis industry continues to grow at a breakneck pace, investors from Wall Street to Silicon Valley are seeing green.
Venture-capital investors from around the world spent $355 million on 100 marijuana-industry deals in 2017, and 2018 is on pace to break last year's record. By the end of February, there were 19 venture-backed deals in the industry worth $176 million alone, and that doesn't factor in the money investors have poured into hedge funds set up to take advantage of the budding industry.
For Business Insider's first-ever list of rising stars in the marijuana-investment space, we asked readers to submit nominations and surveyed our past coverage of the industry. The list celebrates top investors from Wall Street to Silicon Valley and a number of places in between.
Federal prohibition has prevented most American institutional investors and top venture-capital firms from investing in the space. The situation has given rise to a number of marijuana-specific venture firms in the US - funded by high-net-worth individuals and family offices - and provided an opening for Canadian firms. Both these groups are well represented on our list.
We considered any active investors who have made investments in the marijuana industry, whether their contributions come from angel investing, venture capital, or hedge funds.
These are the rising stars of the marijuana-investment scene.