What do you think the next great American industry is going to be? Solar panels? Lasers for household use? If you said “cannabis,” we’ve got the startup for you: WECANNA.
WeCanna describes its mission this way: “Through crowdfunding and industry news, WECANNA educates, inspires and accelerates the new, legal hemp and cannabis industry.”
The company will use crowdfunding to support cannabis-based startups.
Small projects could raise between $3,000 and $5,000, while the larger ones could generate as much as $100,000, WeCanna co-founder Claire Kaufmann told the Medical Marijuana Business Daily.
WECANNA’s website is just informational at this point. It describes why crowdfunding is integral to WECANNA’s vision — it’s called the democratization of access to capital — and solicits ideas for hemp-based projects. An official launch is planned for this summer.
Despite the Obama administration’s lack of support for legalizing marijuana at even the state level, WECANNA seems to have a sunny outlook on the growth of hemp-related businesses. Hemp, which is another product of the same plant that produces marijuana but with no THC — the stuff that gives marijuana its “high” — has been legal in the past but right now occupies a quasi-legal gray area.
The folks at WECANNA are not alone in their bullish assessment for the possibilities of hemp being big business. A recent CNN Money story described another hemp-based startup called Uptoke. The CNN story is a preview of a forthc0ming issue of Fortune with the words, “Marijuana, Inc.” on the cover.
Hemp could take off if the government finally gives it the OK, but until then, it seems like a dicey proposition. But hey, who knows? The payoff could be sky-high.