Name: Weed on Wall Street
Uploaded: 2019-01-15
Duration: 5 min 42 s
Description: How Tilray is bringing cannabis products to the global consumer.

[ MUSIC ] From a clinical perspective I've always thought of cannabis legalization as an individual civil liberties issue. I was really skeptical about medical initially. Talking to patients, talking to pharmacists, talking to physicians, talking to nurses. You can't do that. I've been doing it for eight and a half years and not believe in the medical side. One of the things I learned in venture capital and when dealing with engineers and founders, skepticism's good. It's great to be skeptical but it's also really important to be able to have your views shift. [ MUSIC ] In May of 2010, a technology company from the cannabis industry came into my office. I was intrigued and my two partners and I decided to spend a lot of time, about a year, going around the world talking to people who grew cannabis, people who process it, people who. Sold cannabis in retail stores, dispensaries, patients, pharmacists, lawyers, activists, people running different political campaigns around the world. And at the end of the year we decided this was the biggest opportunity that we'd ever seen in our lifetimes. We quit our jobs and created a company called Privateer Holdings, and bought a company called Leafly. In 2011 and in 2013 and 2014, started a company called Tilray. We really concerned about reputational risk. We didn't wanna be known as the pot guys who started this company and didn't succeed. Every time we thought we were all in, we had put all of our money into this venture, we would invest more capital. And I remember one of our employees asking me about a pizza. I did not have the money to buy a pizza. That was the low point. Terrifying, but also extremely motivating. If we had been in any other business, we would've quit multiple times along the way. In many ways the fact that we couldn't fail is what made us succeed. Back in 2010 when I started, there were 15 countries that had legalized medical cannabis. Today, there's about 35. It's really clear to me how we go from 35 to 40 to 50 to 60 really over the next 24 to 36 months, it's also clear that we'll go from two countries, [ UNKNOWN ] and Canada, to country three, country four, five, and six in terms of the legalization of adult use. I think over the next 12 to 18 months, we're starting to see the velocity change, accelerate Specifically in countries outside of North America. [ MUSIC ] U. S investors in New York and Boston really wanted a U. S listing. And we took that feedback And put together a team, put together a plan to file NS1's so that we could do a US IPO, and kept it really quiet until July 2018, when we did our NASDAQ IPO. We've announced an agreement with the Canadian division Sandoz as a co marketing, co branding, co sales [ INAUDIBLE ]. This is an entire industry that's being created from scratch. Legalized, regulated, taxed cannabis industry globally and I tell our employees that our investors. But this is just day one. I think globally, this is 150 to 200 billion dollar industry. We're investing for the future. We've been doing this for eight and a half years. We have a long patient, methodical view on how to build a massive company in this industry. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] On Tuesday of this week we announced a global agreement with Sandoz AG to distribute, to market, to sell and co- brand our products It's in additional countries around the world. And then the following day, on Thursday we announced a agreement with Anheuser- Busch InBev, and that's a R & D joint venture here in Canada to develop THC and CBD non- alcoholic beverages in Canada. And Canada will fund that through a Tilray subsidiary called High Park. And AB InBev will fund it through Labatt Breweries of Canada. Im excited about a number of things when it comes to these two partnerships. For us, we see ourselves as global pioneers, we've seen this transformation that's taking place over the last. Really over the last eight years since I've been in this industry, as a global paradigm shift, we see there's a mainstream acceptance of medical cannabis and cannabis globally. And we couldn't be more proud than to partner with two global partners. The Sandoz which is a division of Novartis, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world At ABInBev the world's largest brewer. And ABInBev is known for a massive global supply chain and distribution network and they're known for manufacturing and producing, distributing some of the world's most iconic brands. And so we couldn't be happier than to partner with two partners like them. [ MUSIC ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Weed on Wall Street

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How Tilray is bringing cannabis products to the global consumer.