The cannabis industry is booming, but, for a variety of reasons, institutions are not yet able to invest in companies operating within it as long as it remains illegal federally. One type of investor stepping in to fill the void is angel investors, which are wealthy individuals not burdened by responsibility to outside investors. Reuters profiled three companies that have received backing from angel investors, including Chooze, Kind Financial and Tradiv.

Chooze, based in Colorado, licenses the LucidMood brand that aims to deliver a Cannabis 2.0 experience of consistency by layering on mood-enhancing terpenes that are combined with pure cannabinoid extracts. Richard Kimball, Jr., the former Goldman Sachs healthcare investment banker, who is Managing Partner at HExL Advisors. Kimball has invested over $1mm into the industry.

Rick Kimball

Kind Financial, which inked an alliance with Microsoft for its compliance software, is backed by Lindy Snider, who is the daugher of the recently deceased Ed Snider, owner of the NHL Flyers, and the CEO of Philadelphia-based Lindiskin, a cosmetics company.  Snider, an active investor in the industry and the lead advisor to incubator Greenhouse Ventures, is looking to expand her investments into the industry after backing David Dinenberg at Kind Financial.

Lindy Snider

Tradiv, the California-based online wholesale marketplace for cannabis, attracted a group of angel investors at Sand Hill Angels, who made a six-figure investment. Sand Hill Angels have been investing in the Internet, Information Technology, Clean Tech, Consumer and Life Science startup companies since 2000.

Fulton Connor, who spearheaded the Sand Hill Angels investment

A common thread among these three angel investors is that they are investing in ancillary companies in the cannabis industry rather than companies that directly cultivate or sell, keeping their distance from the line of federal illegality.

Read Peter Henderson’s and Jilian Mincer’s “Investors smell profit in marijuana ballot measures”: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-marijuana-investors-idUSKBN12Z0E9

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