The cannabis story is a huge story, for both public markets and our economy. Thanks to a century of (woefully misguided) cannabis Prohibition, cannabis is a brand new – legal – industry, being built from scratch.
The numbers tell part of the story. In terms of the global population, more than 840 million people already have legal access to medicinal cannabis. That is a customer (patient) base that can rival even most of the planet’s largest industries.
The complication? An evolving regulatory structure. While cannabis legalization is a genie that cannot be stuffed back into the bottle, this is an uneven evolution. Different jurisdictions are normalizing their cannabis laws in different ways and at a different pace.
For the cannabis cultivation companies looking to grow these crops and the cannabis nutraceutical and biopharma companies looking to develop products to bring to market, this uneven progression adds a major element of uncertainty to operations.
CANNVAS MedTech Inc. (CSE: MTEC, Forum) is taking a different approach to transforming cannabis opportunity into corporate and shareholder profits. What is a necessary component of virtually every industry? Tools.
CANNVAS MedTech is designing tools for the cannabis industry. This is not to be confused with the cannabis “accessories” that both medicinal patients and recreational users employ for the consumption of cannabis products.
(click to enlarge)
CANVASS MedTech is designing and deploying software applications for the medicinal and recreational cannabis markets. Cannabis software is not subjected to any regulatory scrutiny, dramatically reducing the uncertainty in this business model. As a brand-new industry, there is a need for software applications to fulfill a variety of purposes.
- Education (of patients, practitioners, treatment facilities, and cannabis companies)
- Monitoring cannabis usage (filling the knowledge gap)
- Product information and retailing (as well as branding)
- Data collection/analysis
How will MTEC derive robust revenue streams from this business model? Through innovation and being a better partner for other entities in the industry. More on this later, but first the business model itself.
CANNVAS.Me - The Company has designed its mission as a “7-tier target audience solution”. This encompasses patients, enthusiasts, physicians, caregivers, clinics, hospitals, medical-use patients and insurers.
One of the things that sets this Company apart is a comprehensive focus. CANNVAS MedTech sees this as an important competitive advantage. CEO Shawn Moniz elaborated further on this strategy.
Cannvas Medtech is positioning itself to become the census bureau of the medical and recreational industry. Cannvas.ME is the user-facing web-platform. Its intelligence of technology is derived from CANNVAS Data™- a proprietary database where we store, analyze and deliver insights from user-generated and industry-provided data that enriches itself with AI and machine learning algorithms with each passing day. The data is then not only fed directly back to the user for a more enriched user experience, but is also used by organizations and institutions globally, to make more informed decisions based on their own unique business or social models.
Many sites out there are funded through large corporations that corner both sides of this market: product and content. CANNVAS MedTech is Canada’s first independently funded public company that focuses solely on the education of learning about cannabis. Our rewards are lifestyle based not product based. We will never entice our users in the purchase of cannabis. Our mission is to educate, period. Our core values don’t go beyond enriching and educating the user. CANNVAS.Me is a global solution, equipped with anything and everything you want to learn about the use cannabis.
This management team is not new to the tech space. Before focusing on the cannabis sector, the Company already had an active, revenue-producing data-driven creative agency, now re-branded as CANNVAS Creative™.
CANNVAS Creative™ is focused on the design side of CANNVAS MedTech’s technical solutions. However, the business solutions it produces are designed to be fully integrated into the (cannabis) client’s overall business goals/objectives. It is this level of integration that cannot be equaled by other cannabis tech companies that are producing more fragmented software.
With a pre-existing client base, CANNVAS Creative™ is already a cash-flow positive unit within overall operations. However, this is only one corner of the Company’s foundation. CANNVAS.Me™ is the user platform and CANVASS Data™ is the analytics platform.
Synchronizing these platforms is CANNVAS Connect™. This is a secure data bridge, ensuring the utmost security and privacy for the Company’s flow of data.
A New Leaf in the Cannabis Education Forefront: A closer look at Cannvas.ME
CANNVAS.Me™ is the user-focused platform. In many respects, it is the lynchpin of the whole business. To understand this better requires looking at an important objective of MTEC: better data collection/analytics.
Who needs (better) cannabis data? Simply put, everyone does. From medicinal patients and recreational users all the way to medical practitioners and hospitals, there is an acute lack of quality data with respect to cannabis healthcare.
Because of the enormous need for better data, this data has value. But how do we obtain such data, regularly, and from a large enough percentage of patients and recreational users aliketo be representative of the overall population? And we are talking about a global population here.
The Global Cannabis Stage. Every 60 seconds:
- 470,000 cannabis Tweets
- 2.1 million “Snaps”
- 50,000 Instagram photos
CANNVAS Medtech’s answer is “CANNVAS.Me™”.
CANVAS.Me™ is the vehicle for non-biased information to the cannabis community., while also collecting user data. The innovation that MTEC has added to enhance its data collection is “a carrot”.
CANNVAS.Me™ provides cannabis patients with a loyalty program to motivate users to supply data. Loyalty programs are not a new concept. That’s just the point: this is a tried-and-true technique for greater user engagement. What is new is bringing this concept to cannabis data collection.
Better data.
Medical practitioners need it. Academic institutions need it. Hospitals need it. And cannabis LP’s also need better data. Cannabis cultivators serving the medicinal market have a strong profit incentive to learn which cannabis strains are most efficacious for the treatment of particular disorders.
This leads to another strength of the CANVASS MedTech business model: independence. In speaking with Stockhouse Editorial, CEO Moniz wanted to draw attention to an important consideration. Among all cannabis companies with data operations, CANNVAS MedTech is the only one without direct financial ties to any cannabis producer.
With no connection to any specific line of cannabis products or cannabis strains, this makes the Company an ideal partner for all players in this sector. CANNVAS.Me™ is the data-collection vehicle. CANNVAS Data™ is the vehicle for delivering this data to end users with a vital need for such information.
Combined, the CANNVAS.Me platform is positioned to meet all user needs of the cannabis industry. As a new company in this space, management has made the strategic choice to carve out a niche for itself beginning from the academic side of the industry. CEO Moniz offers some further thoughts on what motivated this decision.
This company started with a personal mission with my father, finding an alternative pain treatment option to the heavily-based synthetic world of pharma. Being an elderly man suffering from rheumatoid arthritis for 15 yrs, it was time for a change. In this search we found site after site owned and/or funded by LPs. My father felt this information was skewed and pushed us to purchase without fully understanding the potential pros and cons of cannabis use.
We needed an un-biased independent source of truth to learn from, but we saw there was none out there. To this end CANNVAS.Me was created. Immediately, we engaged in partnership discussions with the academic community, scientific establishments, government entities, and practitioners. Our mission is to provide a full A-Z educational solution of healthcare through cannabis withoutany commercial bias skewing the content. We lead and win with education.
Education is a natural starting point for bringing new solutions to a new industry. But it’s only a starting point. CANNVAS MedTech Inc. has been busy building relationships with media and industry groups, as well as a variety of health care entities.
Government is also an important partner for MTEC. The Company is seeking out officials in the Ministry of Health to determine how the CANNVAS platform can be incorporated into Health Canada’s cannabis data needs.
CANNVAS MedTech is not a corporation simply comprised of tech “nerds”. Shawn Moniz brings a wealth of business experience, working for household names like AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Novartis, and Pitney Bowes. Through this breadth of experience, he has developed expertise in CRM solutions (“customer relations management”), brand positioning, and multi-channeled marketing.
Founder Steve Loutskou, now the COO, has led much of the early-stage development of MTEC. This role has evolved into managing the Company’s portfolio of clients and employing his business background to drive commercialization opportunities.
(click to enlarge)
Where does the revenue generation come from? Several sources.
MTEC’s platform is designed to be free to cannabisusers – medicinal and recreational. Promoting trust through its independence will bring in the maximum engagement and site traffic. Revenues will come from B2B models through strategic partnerships with government entities, research and healthcare institutions, educational corporations and and the cannabis industry as a whole.
CANNVAS MedTech will offer white labeling solutions to the industry. For all licensing agreements of this nature the Company will retain ownership of all data. As noted, this data has value to numerous players in the industry.
The more white-label licensing that CANVASS Medtech initiates, the larger (and richer) its database will grow. There is a natural scaling-up that will occur with this business model simply through the accumulation of clients.
While the Canadian cannabis market is the initial focus of operations, in a conference call with Stockhouse Editorial management outlined their global strategy. The Company considers the EU and Australia as already being ripe for market penetration. Investors should stay tuned for upcoming announcements on initiatives in these markets.
As for the United States, MTEC management sees the U.S. regulatory landscape as being much more uncertain than Canada – or the EU and Australia. As this market evolves (and acquires greater regulatory certainty), CANNVAS MedTech will look for an attractive window for a legal-based business model for entry into the U.S.
Want more? The Company is near launch on their next cannabis initiative: CANNVAS platform dedicated to pet health.
Unless cannabis investors have been snoozing, they are already aware that using cannabinoids to treat the health problems of our pets is already becoming mainstream, as indicated in this article from the website PetMD.com.
Cannabis Oil for Dogs: Everything You Need to Know
Veterinary care for pets has become increasingly sophisticated (and expensive). Pet-owners now regularly fork out large sums of money to treat the health issues of their pets. Given the amounts being spent – and the zeal of pet-owners – management is anticipating a strong appetite for this software once it has been adapted for the veterinary marketplace.
Innovation. Better data. Comprehensive solutions.
CANNVAS MedTech Inc. has crafted a business model that provides a clear path for growth, distinguishes it from peers, and offers strong incentives and opportunities for partnerships across the cannabis industry. It’s the next step in cannabis healthcare – for people and their pets.
cannvasmedtech.com
FULL DISCLOSURE: CANNVAS MedTech Inc. is a paid client of Stockhouse Publishing.