Gloria Indica
Hi! Welcome to the 4th edition of Gloria Indica, our newsletter written and published for Wednesdays and Thursdays, where we train our eyes on cannabis, business and technology. If you’re reading this for the first time, then welcome. We’re quite buzzed about the fact that apparently our world stands amidst an inflection point, a transitionary phase so to speak, from where we can either plunge headlong into madness or anarchy, or we can choose to listen, compromise, learn and adapt to new ways of thinking.
Venture Capital in Cannabis
“Dutchie, a nearly three-year-old, Bend, Oregon, United States-based software company focused on connecting consumers with cannabis dispensaries that pay it a monthly subscription fee to create and maintain their websites, process their orders and track what needs to be ready for pickup, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. The capital came from both new investors, Thrive Capital and Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, along with earlier backers, including Kevin Durant’s Thirty-Five Ventures and the cannabis-focused fund Casa Verde Capital”
“The money comes hot on the heels of Dutchie’s first major round of funding — $15 million that it closed last September — and suggests that the cannabis industry has fared better during the COVID-19 pandemic than people outside the industry might imagine”
A quote below from Dutchie’s co-founder and CEO, Ross Lipson:
“We now work with over 1,300 dispensaries in 32 markets. By comparison, a year ago we were only operating in 9 markets. Nationwide, 47 out of 50 states now allow some form of legal cannabis, and 2020 could bring full legalization in major markets such as New Jersey and Arizona. Dutchie processes 10% of all legal cannabis sales worldwide and powers over 25% of dispensaries”
It is prudent to reason that Canada and the United States are the most mature cannabis markets in the world, both medicinal and recreational cannabis. This stands in stark contrast to the nations based in Asia, the continent where cannabis evolved in the first place. The black market is currently serving most of Asia’s recreational and medicinal cannabis demand, and hence there is no incentive for the growers to improve the quality of cannabis, most of it being compromised in the form of adulterants, additives, not harvesting the crop at the right time, among many others.
Medicine (and health and wellness) is likely to be the first step towards a full-scale legalization towards recreational cannabis in Asia. Hopefully the current pandemic can help in changing pre-conceived notions of cannabis’ recreational image, accepting the fact that prohibition of a natural plant can never work in the long-run, and then sanctioning funds towards research and development, eventually helping private companies to build a new market from scratch.
Let’s keep blazing.
The High Temple of Modern Fitness
The products and services of modernity will help us become the best versions of ourselves, provided we invoke the smallest iota of will to do so. There are times in our lives when we resolve to make a change, and there are some rare moments when we really find ourselves muster up the will to actually make the smallest hint of change in our routine lifestyle, anything to help us get ahead financially, intellectually and socially. Fitness is one of the rare disciplines where we have the opportunity to do all three – for a better physique complements the mind, which in turn contributes to productivity gains, which in turn possibly would help long-term financial wellness.
Of course, we’re making assumptions like willpower, desire and nutrition. Not to forget surrounding oneself with the right kind of people, preferably people with whom you can share deep stuff with, without fear of any judgement.
Tempo Studio is one of the best fitness products or services we have ever seen. We can’t stop thinking about its desirability quotient. It looks like a product designed and manufactured by Apple and Foxconn. It is mobile, it is social, it’s been gamified and can potentially be linked to other services like e-commerce deliveries for all sorts of health and wellness-related products (since the AI assistant in the product would know your biological and recovery related needs) and even e-learning courses. If we could get our hands on it, we would.
Let’s keep blazing.
The World Will Need More Coffee
“Scientists predict that half the farmland able to sustain the coffee plant will be cut in half by 2050. Also, 60 percent of wild coffee species, which are used to breed more resilient cultivated plants, are at risk of extinction. Meanwhile, demand for coffee globally is increasing 2 percent a year, according to the BBC. While oversupply might be the problem today, in the near future farmers may not be able to get everyone that daily cup of Joe they can’t seem to live without”
“If farmers are going to stay in business, they need to adapt. Vox lists three possible solutions: plant shade trees to keep the coffee plants cool, relocate plants to higher elevations, or replace the crop with a more resilient coffee variety. But all of those potential solutions take money – something coffee farmers don’t have under current coffee prices. “Nowadays, coffee production is equivalent to losing money,” one farmer told”
“Any solution is going to take a huge investment. U.S. coffee chains Intelligentsia and Think Coffee are actively supporting the poor farmers who supply their beans. An economist at a coffee conference in 2019 proposed creating a $10 billion United Nations fund to save coffee, according to the BBC. José Sette, executive director of the International Coffee Organization, put it this way: “If we don’t have the investments today, we might not have sufficient coffee in the future”
As per us, a cold or hot brew of coffee beans lies at the very root of global productivity, for millions across the world (especially those in the formal segments of the economy like information technology based products and services) use the high maintenance, roasted coffee bean to think and do things, in order to start their day in the right way. Of course, millions all over the world are also addicted to coffee, but that is the fault of human beings, not the coffee plant itself, just like how the cannabis plant should not be blamed for millions of people dependent on its recreational properties.
Coffee is more addictive than cannabis, by the way.
Long story, short, what we would like to wonder is, is there a business case to use hydroponic grow systems to grow world class coffee beans at economical prices?
Keep Blazing and thinking. Have a great day 🙂
Marijuana Maharaj 