Actress Nina Dobrev is the latest celebrity investor, and she’s betting on cannabis beverages.
The actress, known for her role in The Vampire Diaries, has invested in Cann, the world’s first low-dose cannabis beverage. Cann costs about $18 per six-pack, and comes in a variety of flavors. This week, the company announced it had raised $27M of Series A funding for international expansion into Canada, where cannabis is legal.
Dobrev, who has more than 25 million Instagram followers and is dating Olympic snowboarder Shaun White, tells Fortune she was introduced to Cann through a friend. She was initially hesitant, but after trying the microdosed social tonic, she enjoyed it. She said it tastes similar to a cocktail, and the effects are subtle.
As someone who loves wine, she has discovered that she also enjoys the social tonic as both “enhance the social experience and give an uplifting social buzz.”
Now, as an investor, she has been encouraging her friends to try the product and has found that it fills a gap in the cannabis industry.
Cann is not the actress’s first venture into the beverage industry. In 2019, she co-founded Fresh Vine, a low-carb, low-calorie, gluten-free wine.
When asked about why she invested in a product that could potentially be a competitor to her own beverage line, Dobrev told Fortune, “I don’t feel like there is a competition at all; I think they complement each other very well.”
According to Dobrev, people might enjoy the social tonic just as much as they enjoy an alcoholic beverage.
The actress is confident in her investment. While Cann is only available in a handful of states or online, the company plans to keep growing and releasing new beverage flavors and products.
Cannabis tax revenue generated more than $2 billion in the U.S. last year and that could grow to $10 billion to $12 billion for states by 2030, exceeding tax revenue from alcohol, according to municipal-bond strategists at Barclays Plc. This year, five states—New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Virginia and New Mexico legalized recreational pot, bringing to 18 the number of states enacting law to regulate and tax cannabis for adult use.
