To turn heads in the crowded North American cannabis space now requires more than just a clever marketing campaign or gimmicky product line. Savvy investors know that smart money in the sector is moving toward companies with little or no debt, strong cash financing, and an experienced and forward-thing think management team.
RMMI Corp. (RMMI) (C.RMMI, Forum) appears to be one such company.
RMMI is an Alberta-based company focused on the production, cultivation, and sale of marijuana in various forms to the recreational and medical markets. According to the company:
“Rocky Mountain Marijuana blends science with nature using aeroponic cultivation and CO2 extraction. It intends to produce high-purity, organic-quality cannabis oils. RMMI’s team will employ leading commercially-available science and technology to maximize production yields and product quality as a low-cost producer, while reducing risk to its crops and its business.”
What really sets the Company apart from the majority of their competition is their leading-edge cannabis cultivation process. The system is called ‘Aeroponics’ and their management team says the future of cannabis cultivation is here…today.
Aeroponics is free of pots and soil, the leading source of contaminants and pests. The aeroponic cultivation system chosen by RMMI suspends a plant's roots in open space, allowing them to freely accept moisture and nutrients while absorbing oxygen and carbon dioxide. RMMI uses an automated and programmed system which delivers the moisture and nutrients directly to the roots, ensuring optimum exposure to the vital ingredients needed for the plants to flourish. Moisture that is not absorbed by the roots is recycled and re-filtered, vastly reducing the amount of water required during cultivation.
As part of the Company’s marketing initiative, “aeroponic systems will effectively and efficiently blend science with nature”.
Earl Connors is RMMI’s President & CEO and he says that aeroponic technology puts the Company ahead of most of the pack in the cannabis cultivation space. In conversation with Stockhouse Editorial, Mr. Connors said it was a very simple question that put his company on the forefront of technological innovation:
“My background as an engineer always leads me to the question of 'where's the efficiency?' When I looked at pots and soil as a method of growing marijuana on a commercial scale, I couldn’t wrap my mind around how that could possibly be efficient.”
The CEO went on to say that when he entered the cannabis industry in 2014 he began to intensively research how, simply put, other people grow other things. And what he found was nothing short of revolutionary:
“Aeroponics is highly efficient, it requires no soil, it’s highly controllable, and it generally gives better yields and faster cultivation cycles. It’s used to grow vegetables and herbs among other plants…so think of marijuana as an herb in terms of its structure. That intrigued the heck out of me, so I started to look into it and a number of other systems. We decided on aeroponics and that’s when we came up with our tagline ‘Blending Science with Nature.’ As an applied scientist and engineer, everything about aeroponics resonated with me and spoke to efficiency, low risk, strong yields, and high control capabilities.”
For investors looking for value and opportunity in the cannabis space, “efficiency, low risk, strong yields, and high control capabilities” should be music to their ears.
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RMMI has an experienced management and development team and has recruited a multi-disciplinary Board of Directors to ensure maximum expertise is available across all major facets of business.
Having commenced trading on the Canadian Stock Exchange on September 25th, 2018, here’s what CEO Connors had to say about the listing:
“The CSE listing represents a significant corporate milestone for RMMI and accelerates our plan to enhance shareholder value by increasing liquidity and exposure to investors. Today’s announcement is a significant accomplishment, highlighting the progress our management team and Board have made in executing the Company’s strategic vision. We are grateful for the assistance provided by the CSE team in making this happen and excited to enter this next phase of our corporate evolution.”
“Uniqueness” in the Industry
According to the CEO, RMMI’s business model is built around developing a completely unique system of growing cannabis:
“From the time I founded the company in December of 2016 and onwards, I thought it was absolutely paramount in allowing us to raise over $10 million of equity capital to date. Aeroponics is unique. There are approximately 120 Canadian licensed producers and I would say that 95% of those use traditional growing methods. So, we have some very distinct competitive advantages from a yield point of view, from a cultivation cycle point of view, and from a low-cost point of view.”
While the largest licensed producers in North America principally employ traditional growing methods, and to a lesser degree, hydroponics systems, RMMI has chosen a modular, scalable approach to aeroponics that creates real-world solutions to the biggest problems that have dogged other cultivators in the past. It’s called ‘vertical cultivation’ – a method of producing cannabis in vertically-stacked layers.
This unique method of production uses indoor cultivation techniques and a strictly controlled bio-environment. All elements of the RMMI process – including cutting-edge LED lighting, moisture, organic nutrients, the pH of water, CO2 exposure, temperature, and humidity – are designed to be controlled and monitored using advanced sensors and data management systems.
The company maintains that the cornerstone of their cultivation and production process is their capacity to embrace and employ science and technology throughout the entire turnkey operation. By employing advanced science and technology they say they can maximize yield, quality and consistency, reduce production costs, and minimize risk – a win-win situation for RMMI and its partners.
The Aeroponics Difference
So, what exactly is aeroponics and what makes it so attractive to investors in the cannabis and hemp cultivation industries? In fact, aeroponics is simply a method of growing plants in an environment without soil. The first gardens with no-soil environments were developed in the 1920s. It became popular among scientists because having a plant's roots outside of the soil made studying root systems easier. It wasn't until the 1970s that indoor growing methods like hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics left the laboratory for recreational and commercial growing.
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In an aeroponic growing system, plants are suspended in a closed or semi-closed environment. The plant's roots and lower stems dangle below a foam barrier and are sprayed with an atomized, nutrient-rich water solution. The leaves and fruit (or buds, in the case of cannabis) are separated from the plants' roots by a plant support structure, which usually consists of closed-cell foam compressed around the lower stem. Below the foam barrier, the roots dangle in an aeroponic chamber.
But all things said, Mr. Connors wanted to emphasize that RMMI is not in the business of building and marketing aeroponic systems:
“Our job is not to develop aeroponics systems. Our job is to cultivate the highest quality marijuana at the lowest cost…consistently.”
He went on to explain that the Company’s system of cultivation will be able to process several different cannabis strains and variants:
“We found an excellent system and we have, in fact, proven that system with a surrogate plant that is almost genetically identical to marijuana and that plant is hemp. If I put a hemp plant next to a marijuana plant in mid-growth we may not be able to tell the difference between the two. We’ve already grown one crop of hemp and the results were spectacular. And, I don’t use that word frivolously. The harvested hemp plants, which were 6 to 7 feet in height, were grown in RMMI’s aeroponics system in just 8 weeks.”
In the RMMI environment, the aeroponic systems will be isolated from potential contaminants, protecting the plants while allowing staff to monitor progress easier and reducing the risk of harmful elements.
RMMI says that their state-of-the-art aeroponic facility is designed to be completely vigilant in preventing the infiltration of contaminants.
RMMI’s initial facility is located in the County of Newell near Brooks, Alberta, about two hours east of Calgary, on the TransCanada Highway. The 7.4-acre property has immense expansion potential to meet growing demand. The Company has a strong relationship with the region and the community.
Looking Forward
2018-2019 Catalysts
• Continued advancement of Licensed Producer application
• Continuation of hemp trial-cultivation program
• Renovation of RMMI cultivation facility underway
• Ongoing equipment purchases
• Recognition of RMMI’s product brand, Alpenglow™
Investment Data
Canadian Listing: CSE: September 25, 2018
Common Shares 13,548,928
Warrants 2,184,546
Options 1,110,000
Fully Diluted Shares O/S 16,843,474
*Insider ownership (basic) 13%
~$7MM of cash after IPO and no debt
Smart investors looking for a unique venture opportunity in the exploding North American cannabis sector, with a forward-looking view towards the international cannabis marketplace, may want to give a long, hard look at this innovative Canadian company.
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www.rmmi.ca
FULL DISCLOSURE:RMMI Corp. is a paid client of Stockhouse Publishing.