Joint Ventures
Five of Toronto’s hottest burgeoning canna-companies
The green thumbs
In 2014, University of Waterloo engineering students Bjorn Dawson and Chris Thiele invented the Grobo, a simple device that could grow fruits and vegetables on a kitchen countertop. When they heard that the Liberals were planning to legalize pot, they switched gears. The Grobo’s inventors describe it as a Keurig for cannabis: it comes with its own light and nutrients, so growers just add seeds and water, then watch their babies grow like, well, weed.
The geneticists
John Lem, CEO of Lobo Genetics, has fused two of society’s current obsessions: cannabis and 23andMe–style DNA testing. Across Canada, in pharmacies and doctor’s offices, customers can swab their cheeks and, within the hour, receive an email explaining how their bodies metabolize THC and CBD—and whether they’re predisposed to bad trips, short- or long-term memory loss or developing schizophrenia. The company plans to go public on the TSX this year, and former provincial finance minister Charles Sousa sits on its board.
The Snoop protégé
You know you’re onto something in the cannabis world when the most famous stoner on Earth backs your company. Snoop Dogg, who once claimed to smoke 81 blunts a day, has poured $2 million into Trellis, a software start-up founded by Toronto’s Pranav Sood. The program allows growers to manage their inventories, generating reports on sales revenue, costs per gram and plant mortality.
The vape artists
Dustin and Corey Koffler, the minds behind Green Tank Technologies, come by the drug trade honestly: their grandfather, Murray Koffler, founded Shoppers Drug Mart back in 1962. The brothers bill their product as the world’s best vape pen, designed for high-quality, high-viscosity cannabis oils. Lorne and Alan Gertner, the father-son duo that created Tokyo Smoke, are investors, as is the ever-generous Snoop Dogg.
The tech guru
John Prentice saw the potential in cannabis as early as 2014, when he founded Ample Organics, which he describes as “the plumbers of the cannabis industry.” His software suite is used by 75 per cent of Canadian licensed growers, allowing them to recall plant harvests, develop e-commerce and manage inventory. Their latest investor? None other than David Thomson, third Baron of Fleet.