Snoop Dogg’s venture capital firm called Casa Verde led a $15 million Series B funding round for Cansativa, a Frankfurt-based cannabis distribution platform that currently supplies German pharmacies. Argonautic Ventures and Alluti also participated in this funding round.
Expanding the medical cannabis product portfolio and developing the recreational platform.
Cansativa will use the funding “to expand its medical cannabis product portfolio and develop its recreational platform ahead of the legalization in Germany,” the company said in a statement last Wednesday.
The funding “will allow us to achieve our ambitious vision of becoming the operational backbone of cannabis retail in Germany,” added Benedikt Sons, CEO of Cansativa.
Casa Verde has already invested in Europe, for example in the Portuguese startup AceCan. The funding comes right after the new coalition government has pledged to legalize cannabis within the next four years.
The legalization bill would give a boost to the legal cannabis sector in Germany, which is the largest market in Europe for the medical use of cannabis. Germany is one of the only countries where patients can obtain medical cannabis for free. The country is expected to account for more than half of the continent’s medical cannabis consumption by 2024.
Cansativa: the Amazon of Cannabis
Founded in 2017, Cansativa is a well-established company in the cannabis industry. The startup – which calls itself the “Amazon of Cannabis” – helps German pharmacies to buy medical-grade cannabis, taking care of the supply chain and logistics.
Cansativa is well-positioned to transfer its technology platform to this new market once the legalization will be set, as dispensaries will have much the same requirements as current pharmacies. According to Jakob Sons, co-founder and managing director of Cansativa, this new fundraising will be used to strengthen the company’s product and software engineering teams before the opening of this new market.
“The most important thing is to improve and transform our existing B2B platform into a scalable technological product that will meet all the requirements of the future growth of the medical and, above all, recreational ecosystem,” he explains to Sifted.
Yoni Meyer, a partner at Casa Verde, said the startup will become a dominant player in the market: “Cansativa is strategically positioned to become the leading medical cannabis platform in the most major economy in Europe… We strongly believe that this team will play a central role in the expected legalization in Germany and will have a decisive impact on the European market, which is expected to reach 3.6 billion dollars by 2025.
