With North America’s war on cannabis slowly coming to an end, marijuana growers and technology companies are becoming friends. The synergies between the two sectors has unleashed a flood of ‘weed tech’ companies offering everything from seed-to-sale services to data analytics to e-commerce stores. Below, we’ll draw your attention to two weed tech stocks that are bringing innovation to the cannabis arena.

 

“Weed Tech” Companies

  • Blockstrain Technologies Corp (TSXV: DNAX)
  • Future Farm Technology (CNSX: FFT)

 

Blockstrain Technologies Corp.

  • Ticker: DNAX
  • Market Cap: $22.9 million
  • Annual Revenue Growth: N/A

The cannabis industry has expanded rapidly over the past five years without addressing a key area of concern for growers and breeders: intellectual property protection. Vancouver-based Blockstrain has developed the cannabis industry’s first IP tracking platform, helping market participants secure rights for their intellectual property.

Blockstrain has developed the cannabis industry’s first IP tracking platform, helping market participants secure rights for their intellectual property.

Incorporated in November 2017, Blockstrain is difficult to analyze from an earnings and revenue point of view because it doesn’t have comparable figures. The company reported a comprehensive loss of $1.6 million for the three months ended Jan. 31, 2019. Funds in operation totalled $1.4 million during that quarter and were mostly used to cover marketing costs. Earlier this year, Blockstrain announced it had signed an agreement with Harvest One Cannabis Inc., a licensed producer, to employ the company’s genome tracking software.

Blockstrain represents an interesting marriage between two of the fastest growing segments in the market today: blockchain and cannabis. If it behaves in any way like a crypto proxy stock, its short-term performance could be influenced by the health of the blockchain industry as a whole. At roughly $0.30 a share, DNAX could become an interesting play once it has comparable sales and earnings data.

 

Future Farm Technologies Inc.

  • Ticker: FFT
  • Market Cap: $2.5 million
  • Annual Revenue Growth: 184% (2019)

Vertical farming – the practice of growing food and other goods in vertically stacked layers – represents the next major innovation in crop production. For marijuana specifically, vertical farming allows producers to scale up capacity without having to acquire more land. Against this backdrop, Future Farm Technologies emerges as a pivotal player.

The company holds a worldwide license for its vertical farming patented technology, which includes redesigning greenhouses to allow for layered crop production. Instead of relying on sunlight, FFT’s vertical farming centres use LED lights and advanced hydroponics. This is another type of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) that has really taken off in recent years.

FFT considers itself to be a “diversified cannabis company,” providing cultivation, processing, retailing and technology services for the marijuana industry. It recently secured a license to expand production in Florida, adding to existing facilities in Rhode Island.

Keep in mind Future Farm Technologies is a micro-cap stock that has only been in operation for a few years. This means it is extremely volatile, as evidenced by its performance in the last five months. As a penny stock, it is currently trading at less than three times its peak. The stock got a huge boost last summer thanks to surging revenue and a deal to bring holographic display and telepresence technology to the marijuana sector.

 

Conclusion

Weed tech is one of the most exciting corners of the marijuana market. Stocks like DNAX and FFT are extremely volatile but provide a tantalizing look at where the market is headed.

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The opinions provided in this article are those of the author and do not constitute investment advice. Readers should assume that the author and/or employees of Grizzle hold positions in the company or companies mentioned in the article. For more information, please see our Content Disclaimer.