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Cann has a can-do spirit about giving consumers a buzz without spirits, and $27 million in new funding certainly helps.
The cannabis beverage brand announced yesterday it closed a Series A, bringing its total $$ raised to date to about $40 million. In addition to Imaginary Ventures, a slew of celebs, including Adam Devine, Nina Dobrev, and Rosario Dawson, got in on the round.
- As a THC brand, Cann can’t always legally rely on traditional marketing, so its celebrity investors have given it a boost, co-founder Luke Anderson told Retail Brew. Plus, Dawson, who joined the brand’s board last year, is “an advocate for women of color in cannabis” and will be involved in upcoming storytelling projects, he said.
High time: The funding comes as the company notched 2.6x sales growth YoY in 2021 and sold nearly 10 million cans of Cann (price point: $18 per six-pack) since its 2019 debut. But co-founder Jake Bullock said growing distribution in a “highly restricted” category can be costly.
“We have to go state-by-state, market-by-market and build that supply chain and manufacturing capability, make that product in each state,” he said. “That becomes really expensive, and can be challenging for folks.”
- In the US, it’s sold in dispensaries in six states, recently adding Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Arizona.
Get buzzy
With the new $$, Cann will head north to Canada through a new production partnership with Truss Beverage Co.—a joint venture between MolsonCoors Canada and cannabis producer HEXO Corp. Ontario is up first, with British Columbia, Alberta, and more to follow. It’s the first place Cann is entering where microdosed beverages have been on the market before, Bullock noted.
“It’ll be exciting to go in and not have to start defining what we are, but why we’re different,” he explained.
- Bullock added that the partnership with the beer giant will also help its future positioning among alcoholic bevs in grocery and liquor stores.
Can it: Cann is also working to secure traditional retail placement with new THC- and CBD-free innovations like Cann Unspiked, which hit stores like Foxtrot and Erewhon last year. The moves were encouraging for investors in its Series A, Anderson said.
“One of the reasons that investors really doubled down hard now is this signals a moment where Cann is not just a cannabis company; it’s a beverage company.”—EC