🎙️ Podcast: TILT, CEO, Gary Santo
🎙️ Podcast: TILT, CEO, Gary Santo
TILT is taking a different approach to scaling its business, choosing to focus on wholesale and becoming the partner of choice for brands to enter the East Coast.
Biography. Gary Santo brings more than 25 years of experience in Consumer Credit, Financial Services, Gaming and Technology, Higher Education and Pharma. He has held a variety of senior-level positions at The First Marblehead Corporation, Fitch Ratings, International Game Technology (IGT), Lantheus Medical Imaging and, most recently, serving as VP, Investor Relations at Columbia Care.
Investor Presentation
TILT helps cannabis businesses build brands. Through a portfolio of companies providing technology, hardware, cultivation and production, TILT services brands and cannabis retailers across 37 states in the U.S., as well as Canada, Israel, Mexico, South America and the European Union. TILT’s core businesses include Jupiter Research, a wholly-owned subsidiary and leader in the vaporization segment focused on hardware design, research, development and manufacturing; and cannabis operations, Commonwealth Alternative Care in Massachusetts, Standard Farms in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and its partnership with the Shinnecock Indian Nation in New York. TILT is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.
Focused on Wholesale and Partnering with Third Party Brands. Because the company was slow to get licenses in MA, they opted to use their 100,000 sq ft cultivation and manufacturing. Rather than push everything through their retail channels, they decided to focus on wholesale in MA. This has allowed the company to be the partner of choice to bring brands like 1906, Airo, Highmans, Her Highness, Old Pal, Timeless, and Toast, among others. TILT has put partner brands and their owned brands (Standard Farms, Commonwealth Alternative Care) on equal footing and evaluates resource allocation based on performance.
Brand Partners. TILT looks to work with brands that have a definitive architecture, and if there is a celebrity involved (such as Highsman), they have to be actively involved. They like to partner with brands that have a track record (with Highsman and Her Highness being an exception).
Cross-Sell Capabilities. TILT is Timeless Refinery’s partner in Ohio. The relationship started with Timeless having already been a Jupiter Research customer, which allowed the Company to cross-sell itself as a manufacturing partner for state expansion. Another cross-sell customer is Airo, which has been a client of Jupiter since 2016, Airo also licenses exclusive Jupiter products and collaborates on proprietary inhalation technologies. The company grew End2End Customers (Plant-Touching and Inhalation Customers) from 20% of revenue in 2020 to 43% of revenue currently.
Jupiter Research. Jupiter Research designs, develops, and manufactures innovative vaporization technologies exclusively for natural plant-derived extractors and oil consumers. As a wholesale brand partner, Jupiter provides high-performance, state-of-the-art solutions that allow extractors to focus on their craft. Jupiter distributes cartridges and vaporizers featuring CCELL® technology. Exclusive Jupiter vaporizer devices and CCELL® wholesale products are available direct-to-retail or via white-label customization. Jupiter Research was founded in 2015 and is based in Phoenix with manufacturing operations in Shenzhen, China. Jupiter carries $30-40M of inventory, which has allowed them to manage the supply-chain efficiently at times when disruption has occurred.
Background in Investor Relations. Gary previously served as VP, Investor Relations at Columbia Care and credits his time in Investor Relations as a way to ride shotgun with the CEO and better understand different parts of companies. This helped him understand the strategy, capital markets, competition, and where the company can differentiate. The company also has other executives that have come from Investor Relations background — COO, Dana Arvidson, previously was VP Capital Markets and Investor Relations for The First Marblehead Corporation; SVP Corporate Development, Cristina De Tomasi, previously was an Investor Relations Associate at Columbia Care, and of course, their current VP Investor Relations, Lynn Ricci, previously was Director of Investor Relations at Trulieve. Gary previously worked with Dana and Cristina.
👋 The Highly Objective Podcast is hosted by Dai Truong, who leads Cannabis Investment Banking at Arlington Capital Advisors.. Third-party information presented here and links to third-party content are for informational purposes only and are not intended as a recommendation, offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument, security or investment. The information provided is not warranted as to completeness or accuracy and is subject to change without notice. Linking to third-party sites in no way implies an endorsement or affiliation of any kind between Arlington Capital Advisors, LLC, or its affiliates and any third party. The information in this blog constitutes my own opinions (and any opinions posted by guest bloggers from time to time) and it should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Arlington Capital Advisors, LLC or any affiliate.