While marijuana has only been legalized in Washington and Colorado for recreational purposes, ArcView Investor Network brought cannabis to the heart of Wall Street on June 14 to hear proposals from would-be cannabis entrepreneurs.
ArcView Investor Network, a group founded in San Francisco, plans to help legal marijuana businesses in terms of storage, security, lighting and other services. It also plans to help market cannabis products.
"The ArcView Angel Investor Network currently consists of over 50 accredited investors, many of whom have already made investments in this sector, who gather at least once per quarter to evaluate the best opportunities for investment in the federally-legal ancillary parts of the industry," the website's About Page described the organization.
The group, led by its president and co-founder Steve DeAngelo, held a conference in New York City on Friday and met with over 20 startups in that may be among the major players in the cannabis industry in the future. It is the first conference in a state where cannabis has not yet been legalized even for medical purposes.
"What I hope to see happen here today is some of the 20 companies represented will get funded and will be able to get to work on putting their ideas and creativity to work building this industry," replied DeAngelo when asked by International Business Times of his expectations of the conference in the financial capital of the world.
"This is a historical moment. We're announcing to Wall Street, this is the real deal," exclaimed Troy Danton, CEO of ArcView Group that oversees the investor network in an interview with New York Times.
Some of the startups the presented to the ArcView Investor Network include Dynamiq Lightning, company based in Portland that markets products for cultivation of marijuana indoors. Another company called Canna Security America from Denver also showed optimism for the cannabis industry.
The cannabis entrepreneurs want to be ready when legalization of marijuana progresses in the future and make most of the opportunities up for grabs in a market in need of cannabis either for recreational or medical purposes.
The legal sales of cannabis are projected to hit $6 billion by 2018 according to projections. Illegal sales are said to be around $10 to roughly $120 billion per year.
MSNBC cited a research that shows majority of Americans favoring the legalization of marijuana and that the national legalization of cannabis can save the country as much as $13.7 billion in terms of tax revenue and savings in the implementation of the law against marijuana.
Do you think the boom in the marijuana industry will be the next gold rush in the United States?
