🍪 Cookies opens First Dispensary on East Coast in Worcester, MA
🍪 Cookies opens First Dispensary on East Coast in Worcester, MA
Terraflos (LatAm) raises $8M Seed Funding Round. High Tide Eliminates All of META Convertible Debentures ($21.1M).
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🌿Industry
First-Ever MA Cannabis Cup Sparks Lines At Local Dispensaries. The first-ever High Times Cannabis Cup Massachusetts, a people's choice competition that began on August 21, has been met with enthusiasm statewide, with local cannabis consumers lining up to buy one of the 2,000 available voting kits on August 21 and 22. Judging kits are made up of products from 45 different brands and sold at 16 retailers, including NETA's Brookline and Northampton stores and Insa dispensaries in Springfield, Salem, and Easthampton. Cannabis consumers slept overnight at Insa Salem on August 21 and others queued up at Insa Springfield as early as 4 a.m. on August 22. Insa flower judging kits sold out immediately, but other kits remain available for edibles and tinctures judging.
Theory Wellness (MA) to Pay $300,000 Over Payroll Violations. The company failed to properly pay employees who worked Sunday and holiday shifts, according to the state attorney general's office. Under state law, employees of certain retail businesses are entitled to "premium pay" for working Sundays and certain holidays. In 2021, that rate is 1.2x their regular hourly rate. That rate will go down to 1.1x and will be eliminated in 2023. The attorney general's office started investigating in December after getting a complaint from an employee. The state determined that more than 280 Theory Wellness workers did not receive the proper premium pay. Theory Wellness in a statement said it cooperated with the attorney general's office over what it called "inadvertent payroll errors."
💵Deals
Terraflos (LatAm) — Founded By Former Congressman, Closes $8M Seed Funding Round. The round was led by FLA Ventures – a venture capital fund led by Sebastian Hochbaum, Facundo Belocopitt and Martín Szurman. MPE Investment, Glassford Investment and Yaax Capital also participated in the investment round. The company will use the proceeds of the raise to continue to expand across the region as it seeks to become a dominant player in the industry.
Big Pete's — Partners With Ginger Commerce For Kitchen To Door Delivery. Customers can buy cookies directly from the kitchen to their door using BIG PETE'S ONLINE STORE, the Company will soon launch a Cookie Club where customers will get notified of announcements about deals and get the first chance to purchase seasonal cookies or other specials.
📄Company Updates / Earnings
iAnthus — Update on Recapitalization Transaction. As described in the Company's new release dated August 23, 2021, on August 20, 2021, iAnthus received a Notice of Application from Gotham Green Partners, LLC and Gotham Green Admin 1, LLC (Applicants). The Applicants seek, among other things, a declaration that the Purported Notice is effective. In the alternative, the Applicants seek an order rectifying the Restructuring Support Agreement dated July 10, 2020 (RSA) to permit the Outside Date to be extended and prohibiting the Company from terminating the RSA without further order of the court. iAnthus intends to respond to the application and ask that it be dismissed with costs. The Notice of Application has been issued under Ontario Superior Court of Justice Court File Number CV-21-00667501-00CL.
High Tide — Elimination of All META Convertible Debentures. The Company’s total debt balance immediately after closing the acquisition of META was approximately $71 million, including $21.15 million of META Convertible Debentures. The META Convertible Debentures have now been extinguished in their entirety, and the Company’s current total debt balance has been reduced to $28.4 million. Of this amount, $10.8 million is non-interest bearing. Total debt maturities during the next 12 months from today are $1.6 million. Of the company’s remaining debt profile, $13.4MM is convertible at an average conversion price of $6.31 per common share, while $15.0 million is not convertible.
🏬Retail
Trulieve — St. Augustine, Florida. The new, larger location replaces Trulieve's previous store in St. Augustine to meet the increased demand of consumers in the area.
COOKIES — Worcester, MA. New Día is the first Cookies storefront on the East Coast, the recent New Día location will host a unique menu of top-shelf products featuring Cookies’ famed genetics alongside exclusive New England themed Cookies SF clothing. The partnership will include the same New Día staff at the existing New Día location, with an addition of 23 new and locally hired staff members.
March & Ash — Imperial Beach.
The Imperial Planning Commission voted to amend the company’s conditional-use permit during its meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 25, clearing for March and Ash’s first cultivation center. The company maintains retails operations in Imperial, Vista and two sites in San Diego, one in City Heights and one in Mission Valley. The cultivation center will be in a vacant 7,721-square-foot suite in the same complex as the dispensary at 2433 Marshall Ave. The space is attached to the rear of the existing retail suite. In its first year of operation, March and Ash anticipates that it will cultivate about 500 pounds of cannabis, but once company has a full year under its belt, that yield is anticipated to be about 1,200 pounds of cannabis annually, according to the company.
Seed & Smith — Opens Flagship Louisville Location, 1st of Continued CO Expansion Plans. A significant milestone since the 2016 opening of their Denver dispensary, Seed & Smith Louisville is a first-of-its-kind retail model for Colorado’s legacy cannabis market. The location will deliver a unique shopping experience and reimagined concept with a front-of-store section called The General Store, exclusively selling non-cannabis lifestyle goods from coveted brands like Summerland, Edie Parker and more.
🌱Product
Ayr Wellness — Launches Origyn Extracts in Arizona. Origyn will be the first of Ayr’s national brand portfolio to launch in Arizona. Origyn is available exclusively in Ayr’s three Oasis Cannabis stores. Wholesale operations are expected to begin roughly one month from now. The initial products to be made available will include six SKUs, all strain-specific High Terpene Extracts (HTE) cartridges, including Garlotti HTE, LA Star Killer HTE, Cookie Glue HTE, Chery Tang HTE, California Orange HTE, and Jungle Juice HTE. Origyn Extracts was originally launched in Massachusetts in October 2020 and is now the leading concentrate brand in that state, with ~22% market share in concentrates, according to BDSA. The Company launched Origyn Extracts in Florida in May 2021. Ayr plans to roll out Origyn across its full operational footprint, including Nevada and Pennsylvania later this year.
🧔People | 💻Hiring
LeafLink — Director of Retail Business Development. LA-based (5-10 years experience selling technology, or tech-enabled services to enterprise level clients within a high growth company). LeafLink is seeking a Director of Business Development to join their LA-based team to own and drive our retail relationships in California for their new suite of retailer focused products. This is an exciting opportunity to not only have a significant impact on our company’s growth and customer satisfaction, but also to create the playbook for how we sell into and serve growing and multi-store retailers at LeafLink.
LeafLink — Account Manager, Enterprise Retail West. LA-based (7+ years selling technology or tech-enabled services to enterprise-level retailers within a high growth company). This role will create, grow, and nurture national and regional relationships with our enterprise dispensary clients, ensuring adoption across LeafLink’s suite of b2b marketplace services across the industry’s largest retail chains. The Company is looking for someone with a proven track-record of building deep relationships with enterprise retailers in order to expand our reach and deepen our engagement.
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