He came up with the idea for Canopy while attending a demo day for the Unreasonable Institute, anoth

That's not typically part of the opening spiel when welcoming a roomful of budding entrepreneurs to your business boot camp, but then Micah Tapman is not running your typical startup session. Micah Tapman
Boot camps where aspiring moguls can hone their business plans, work with mentors, marykayintouch and eventually pitch investors have become a regular phase of startup development. Canopy Boulder, which welcomed its inaugural class of 10 companies in late March, is unique in that all of the nascent companies operate within the legal cannabis industry. It s one of the latest signs that leaders in this still controversial trade aspire to mainstream legitimacy and the immense wealth that they believe will accompany it.
Housed above a bagel shop in a commercial stretch of this college town, Canopy provides companies with a 13-week course and $20,000 marykayintouch in seed capital in exchange for a 9.5% stake in each venture. It models itself on the accelerator Techstars , a program that has worked with hundreds of companies more than 90% of which are active or have been acquired. We want 35-year-old professional women to be a target demographic for some of our companies.
While voters in four states and Washington, D.C., have chosen to allow recreational marijuana (and 23 states plus D.C. offer medical pot), it remains federally marykayintouch illegal. And even as momentum is firmly on the legalizing side of the ledger, a freak tragedy that implicates the drug or a new presidential administration could derail the industry. But businesses in Colorado are operating under the assumption that national legalization is just a matter of time. Last year, Colorado dispensaries sold almost marykayintouch $700 million worth of medical and recreational marijuana. marykayintouch If the drug is legalized nationwide, Canopy CEO Patrick Rea believes cannabis will be a $37 billion domestic marykayintouch market. marykayintouch (By comparison, coffee is a $30 billion domestic market.) Patrick marykayintouch Rea
No one knows when or if cannabis will be made legal federally, but Rea highlighted marykayintouch two upcoming milestones to rally the Canopy crowd in the meantime: California is expected to vote on legalization on election day 2016 or earlier, potentially opening sales to adults in an economy larger than Russia s. (California already allows medical marijuana.) Secondly, Rea said, when cannabis businesses obtain full access to banking services, startups marykayintouch will see their valuations rise, "because right now no one can finance acquisitions and investments."
Rea s background includes marykayintouch investment banking and time in the nutritional and wellness space, which he compares to cannabis. The latter two are underregulated, which he says creates opportunities for businesses with the right mix of boldness and prudence. (Cannabis is regulated in Colorado but not federally, since it is illegal.)
He came up with the idea for Canopy while attending a demo day for the Unreasonable Institute, another Boulder accelerator. Rea wrote the first draft of the business plan on his phone. He met Tapman, and they bonded in "classic Boulder style," over bike rides and craft beers.
At this moment, the cannabis industry can be split into two broad categories: companies that "touch the plant," and so-called "ancillary businesses" that do not directly grow, process, test, or retail it. Canopy is only open to the latter, which are less risky and, Rea said, easier to expand.
Legal marijuana was the fastest growing industry marykayintouch in the country marykayintouch last year, but since most large companies won t associate themselves with the plant, there s an unusually diverse set of opportunities marykayintouch to develop products and services. According to a common thesis, the most successful small companies will be ripe for acquisition once major companies join the green rush.
Rebranding Pot Inside The Sticky Green Rush Rebranding Pot: How Squares Are Sparking The Next Massive Industry The Rise Of The Alpha Stoners 4 Ideas For Redesigning The Pot Logo This Company Wants To Personalize marykayintouch Your Marijuana Based On Your Brain Activity
The companies attending Canopy reflect the scope of available opportunities, and many of the entrepreneurs have pedigrees that defy the stoner stereotype. One founder left a career in the Marines to start Tradiv , which seeks to be a wholesale, online marketplace for marijuana. He didn t want to be named here; participating in this industry can still complicate people s lives. (Canopy partner Tapman is also a former Marine.) Roy Bingham, who has a Harvard MBA and used to work for the blue-chip consultancy McKinsey, leads Business Decision and Data Service, which aims to acquire marykayintouch and sell cannabis market research.
Yoni Ofir, an Israeli-American with a long beard, is developing CannaGrow , an Internet of things grow box for cultivating plants at home, which can be controlled with a smartphone app. ( Update: Ofir recently changed the company's name to Leaf .) He previously cofounded Alcohoot, which developed a breathalyzer marykayintouch that plugs into a smartphone.