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| |  Image Credits: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images | | Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the spring of 2020 felt more like winter for cannabis startups; the industry was in the midst of a correction that saw many companies contract, consolidate or disappear. But after millions of Americans began sheltering in place, many states classified cannabis as an essential business. Now, investors are bullish on the industry: the recent cash crunch lowered valuations, but revenue and growth are on the upswing, which means there are bargains to be found for a limited time. We spoke to six investors who actively invest in the sector to harvest their thoughts: - Morgan Paxhia, Managing Director, Poseidon Investment Management
- Karan Wadhera, Managing Partner, Casa Verde Capital LLC
- Sean Stiefel, CEO, Navy Capital
- Matt Hawkings, Founder/Managing Partner, Entourage Effect Capital
- Larry Schnurmacher, Managing Partner, Phyto Partners
- Mitch Baruchowitz, Managing Partner, Merida Capital Partners
Join Extra Crunch Live today at 2 p.m. EDT/11 a.m. PDT for a conversation with Alexia Bonatsos (founder, Dream Machine VC) and Niko Bonatsos (managing director, General Catalyst). In a chat moderated by Senior Editor Alex Wilhelm, the pair will discuss how the pandemic has changed their outlook, but we’re also planning to talk about the future. Extra Crunch subscribers will have an opportunity to ask questions and join the conversation, so sign up here for a trial membership. Thanks for reading; have an excellent week. Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Peter Dazeley / Getty Images | | Online car-buying service Vroom filed for its IPO yesterday, so Alex Wilhelm used this morning’s column to analyze the company’s S-1. Because so few companies are seeking to go public these days — and because Vroom has modest growth and low margins — he tries to answer the question many are likely asking: why would this company go public now? Read more | | | |
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| |  Image Credits: onurdongel / Getty Images | | Sheltering in place is new, but because TechCrunch has been a work-from-home organization virtually since its launch, our staff has adapted quickly. None of us can predict the future, but we thought it’d be interesting to discuss the long-term changes that might emerge from a post-COVID-19 era: - Devin Coldewey: coffee shops and co-working
- Alex Wilhelm: the future of the home office
- Danny Crichton: revitalizing urban and semi-urban spaces
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| |  | | In this week’s roundup of all things mobile: advocacy groups say TikTok is still violating COPPA, Slack rolls out new iOS and Android apps and Huawei finds a loophole to ship phones with Google Apps. Plus, a deep dive into funding and M&A news, a look at the latest download rankings and why Quibi blames the coronavirus for its less-than-stellar debut. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: ampolis / Getty Images | | There’s no way to tell what our lives will look once this moment is in the rear-view mirror; the uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic is so deep, our toes can’t touch the bottom. I have a hard time taking in the entirety of the social and economic disruptions we’re experiencing, but this guest post by Ann Miura-Ko gathers a comprehensive list of questions about how we might live and work when COVID-19 is behind us. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Bloomberg / Getty Images | | Now that we’re going to great lengths to keep our distance from each other, consumers and businesses have been adopting e-commerce at a faster pace. Looking at Shopify’s merchant onboarding data from the last two years, the platform is seeing “jaw-dropping growth:” in February and March, it added more vendors than it did in all of 2018. Once you add in contactless payments, insane traffic growth rates for D2C websites and a universal consumer desire for safety and convenience, virtual storefronts do not look like a fad. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Electronic Arts | | Due to COVID-19, stadiums and arenas around the world have fallen silent as fans and athletes lockdown at home, but the closures have created “a breakout opportunity for esports broadcasting,” writes Eric Peckham. He interviewed Electronic Arts SVP Competitive Gaming Todd Sitrin to learn more about how game publishers are building bridges to non-gamers with televised events. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: John Lund / Getty Images | | For growth-minded readers: tips for using an omnichannel approach to boost remote sales, how dynamic CTAs can help close more B2B leads, and a few words about increasing referrals by closing the intention gap. Read more | | | |
| |  | | Alex Wilhelm examined SoftBank’s fiscal year results twice yesterday. In his second look, he teased apart the news regarding the end of the conglomerate’s $100 billion Vision Fund to see “what we can infer about the broader startup market itself.” Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch | | Alex’s first take on SoftBank yesterday looked at the top-line numbers, but he intentionally spent more time examining the company’s artistic choices when it came to its earnings deck. A unicorn flying over the Valley of Coronavirus would be a pretty nice concept for a tapestry, now that I think about it. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Tomohiro Ohsumi / Getty Images | | Reporter Arman Tabatabai and Managing Editor Danny Crichton pored over the financials of SoftBank subsidiary Arm Holdings, a semiconductor company that produces designs for chips that run the world’s top-selling smartphones. They interviewed CEO Simon Segars last year, so Arman and Danny were interested in seeing “how the company and its owner have held together in the year since we last got a public overview of its financials.” Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Jacek Sopotnicki / Getty Images | | Africa would benefit greatly if more countries supported their nascent startup ecosystems with operational support and legislative frameworks, writes Adedana Ashebir, a regional manager for Village Capital. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Treedeo / Getty Images | | In this week’s edition of his security column, Zack Whittaker reports on how the U.S. Senate voted to allow the U.S. government to view citizens’ browsing records without a warrant and looked at how cyberattackers invaded the internal systems of a company that helps manage the UK’s power grid. In other news, Pitney Bowes was hit by ransomware again, two security startups snapped up funding rounds, and Zerodium announced it would “temporarily stop buying exploits that target iPhones because it has too many.” Read more | | | |
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