CULTIVATED: An inside look at Eaze– Cuts at Caliva– Dismal earnings for Canopy Development

Welcome to Cultivated, our weekly newsletter where we’re bringing you a within look at the deals, patterns, and characters driving the multibillion-dollar international cannabis boom.

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Delighted Friday everybody,

It’s been quite a busy week here as I got my feet under me, returning back to my “regular” beat.

The startup’s ups and downs over the past three years offer insight into the wild trip that marijuana startups, investors, and workers have been on considering that US states started legislating the drug.

The other big piece of news this week was Canopy Development’s miserable earnings

” More stressing for us were remarks around the need to ‘comprehend what consumers want’.

That being said, Canopy Growth is still the biggest marijuana company. And with a deep-pocketed alcohol giant backing the business– along with a brand-new( ish) CEO, David Klein– it’s probably not time to count them out yet.

I’ll be speaking with Klein later this afternoon also.

– Jeremy

Here’s what we wrote about:

An inside appearance at Eaze’s newest pitch deck reveals significantly scaled back aspirations from the once-soaring cannabis startup

Internal documents and interviews expose Eaze’s significantly scaled-back ambitions.

In 2020, under the guidance of a new executive group and after a round of layoffs, Eaze has pared back that expectation to $190 million in sales.

Cannabis start-up Caliva laid off 20 staff members including a leading retail exec as headwinds from the coronavirus pandemic upend the industry

Marijuana startup Caliva laid off 20 staff members from its corporate office on March 30, the company validated.

The cuts mainly impacted employees in the retail management department and included Elizabeth Cooksey, a senior exec who was brought in to drive Caliva’s retail strategy in 2019

• Red Light Holland, a CSE-listed psychedelics business that is preparing to produce and offer branded “magic truffles” in the Netherlands, has selected comic Russell Peters as its Chief Creative Officer

Lavish parties, greedy pols and panic spaces: How the ‘Apple of Pot’ collapsed(Politico)

A concealed origin story of the CBD trend(New York City Times)

Prepare for pharmaceutical grade magic mushroom tablets(Vice)

Cannabis binge in quarantine lifts wish for federal legalization(Bloomberg)

Justice Department blocks ‘essential’ cannabis workers from personal bankruptcy protection(Wall Street Journal)

Not so green on the other side: How a Russian magnate’s $165 Million U.S. cannabis bet went up in smoke(Radio Free Europe)