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the biggest opportunity came about almost by
accident. In 2013, Privateer got a cold call from
the health department of Canada, which was
phasing in a new medical marijuana licens-
ing process designed to professionalize that
country’s industry. Health Canada had dozens
of eager applicants who lacked funding to sup-
port a commercial marijuana grow operation
and wondered if Privateer might invest. Un-
impressed with the offerings, Kennedy and his
partners had a different idea: Why not become
growers themselves?
All they needed was marijuana. That’s where
Leafly came in. The Privateer team crunched
data from the site to identify the 20 most cov-
eted, high-potency strains across Canada—cre-
ating a shopping list for themselves. Actually
locating the bud was another story. “We would
go and meet people at a Tim Hortons, and we
would follow them down a road. Then we’d
have to ditch a car,” recalls Groh. “We’d be in
rooms with a lot of cash and weapons.” Patrick
Moen, who left his job at the U.S. Drug En-
forcement Administration to join Privateer in
early 2014 and now serves as general counsel,
accompanied Groh, typing up contracts on a
laptop and handing out checks to backwoods
cannabis growers. “It reminds me of my under-
cover days early on at DEA, you know, except I
had backup,” says Moen. “I look back on it, and
I’m like, What the hell was I thinking?”
Those plants—from Master Kush to Island
Sweet Skunk—were transported live to Na-
naimo, in refrigerated trucks that rode the ferry
to Vancouver Island, where they became the
foundation of Tilray and its brand portfolio.
Today, the genetic clones of more than 60 dif-
ferent “mother” plants grow in specimen jars in
an R&D lab at Tilray’s headquarters. They, in
turn, have propagated Tilray’s newer produc-
tion facilities in Ontario and Portugal from
scratch, a strategy the company will continue to
employ as it scales up. “When you go to Star-
bucks—doesn’t matter if you go in Seattle or
Iowa—and you order a caramel macchiato, you
expect it to be the same everywhere. You can
do the same thing for cannabis,” says Cowen’s
Solomon. “Brendan and his team understood
early on that their success is in their ability to
deliver that kind of consistency.” The team has
taken other cues from Starbucks too: To come
up with the Tilray name (“til” as in tilling land,
crossed with a sun ray) and logo, Kennedy hired
the design firm of Terry Heckler, who created
the iconic Starbucks mermaid emblem.sell advertising to dispensaries, turning Leafly
into a kind of Yelp for cannabis. But Privateer
struggled to attract investors, and revenue was
slow to come. Soon Kennedy had drained his
401(k), maxed out his credit cards, and bor-
rowed money from family members to pour
into Leafly. He remembers emptying the jug
of change next to his washing machine into
the Coinstar at Safeway for a grand total of
$196. There was a night when he didn’t even
have enough money to order a pizza. “That was
darkness unlike anything I’d ever faced,” he
remembers. More than being broke, Kennedy
and his partners feared what flaming out on a
Hail Mary bet on pot would do to their career
prospects. “We were worried we would always
be known as failed pot guys,” Kennedy says.
Finally, the rest of the country started to
prove Kennedy’s hypotheses. In 2012, Wash-
ington and Colorado became the first states to
legalize recreational marijuana, and investors—
and Leafly advertisers—wanted in. But perhaps
CANNABIS
COMMITTEE
From left:
Privateer
Holdings
general
counsel
Patrick
Moen with
cofounders
Kennedy,
Michael Blue,
and Christian
Groh, at
Privateer’s
Seattle offices.WALL STREET ’S CONTACT HIGH