A group of Boston University students and alums with ideas for marijuana-based start-up companies are squaring off this week for a chance at $10,000 in seed money and free services from Denver-based consultants for their big highdeas.
Five teams submitted pitches for the 2017 Cannabis Start-Up Challenge, co-sponsored by BU’s BUzz Lab and Green Lion Partners, a Colorado pot business strategy firm. A panel of judges (Jamie Lewis, vice president of operations for iAnthus, founder and CEO of Mountain Medicine, COO of Mayflower Medicinals; Charley Lax, managing general partner of GrandBanks Capital; Kim Napoli, co-founder of The Hempest Inc.; and Andrew Thut, CIO of 4Front Capital) will pick the winner on Tuesday night from 6-9 p.m. at the school’s Questrom School of Business Auditorium.
Here are their pitches:
Hyasynth Bio
What it does: Creates THC, the drug’s active component by growing yeast specially engineered to produce the same chemicals instead of growing marijuana.
From Hyasynth Bio‘s Kevin Chen, CEO and co-founder:
We’re engineering yeast to produce the active compounds ofCannabis (ie: THC, CBD, and others) instead of growing plants. So instead of having hundreds of thousands of square feet of Cannabis grow, we can have just a few steel tanks in a much smaller space to make the same amount of product. The process is scalable and makes specific products in high quality, since there are no issues with plant strains, contamination and pesticide use. We’re a seed stage company with a proven technology and on our way to our series A and looking for partners to go to market.
SmartHarvest Labs
What it does: Called a “Canntainer,” it’s a shipping container transformed into a “modular, stackable, sustainable greenhouse” that is “designed for high output, high quality organic cannabis production,” according to SmartHarvest’s Madison Palms.
Movez
What it does: An app that helps people plan and attend marijuana meet-ups.
Via CEO and founder Joshua Hollis:
At Movez, our mission is to innovate the way people attend social gatherings from the perspective of both the host and the attendee by maximizing the efficiency of time, travel, and fun.
Movez is a platform that hones in on the most critical factors of the social event experiences. For attendees and hosts, Google Maps are integrated to provide a user-friendly layout of the events happening in their respective areas. For hosts, Movez provides seamless software solutions on both the web and mobile application, using technology that optimizes hosting operations while maximizing host revenues. For attendees, Movez provides a mobile application that enables them to connect with their favorite venues, hosts and attendees they encounter at the events they’re attending! Utilizing Social (follow kits, group creation, & messaging), Transportation (Uber & Lyft Ride Sharing Integrations) & Organizational Features (Event organizing segmentation), we make hosting & attending event experiences seamless!Specifically for the Cannabis Cup and Dope Movez, we plan on utilizing our software infrastructure to curate Hemp experiences. Once we segment and categorize events on the Movez platform (for users to filter through events that cater to their tastes), we will utilize a 420 friendly filter on the platform to enable our users to find and even host their own geo-tagged, cannabis-centric like events (e.g. edible tastings, festivals, concerts, and information sessions). Furthermore, we plan on utilizing our data architecture to add more value to Cannabis businesses by connected them to more consumers in their demographic.
We have launched a Beta-Web and beta-iOS application already. We plan on launching our scalable and full feature product in the coming months.
GrowPro
What it does: Via founder Francis Zamora: It’s “a cultivation monitoring platform, the star of which is a 360-degree camera mounted to a gyroscopic track capable of 2D and 3D navigation. The software behind the camera allows for complete climate control, irrigation, and monitoring through an online dashboard.”
What it does: Its “Virtual Center of Excellence (CoE) for Cannabis Care and Research” works outside the federal funding system to study marijuana policy and its impact and offers solutions.
credit:420intel.com