It was all over the media: NFL superstar Joe Montana and Carol Bartz — former CEO of
Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) and Yahoo,
now owned by Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) — were part of a group that invested
$75 million into seed-to-sale cannabis company Caliva.
While Montana has been fairly reluctant to comment on cannabis and his investments in the space — although he did talk
about cannabis and the NFL last year — Bartz was more than open about these topics, going on the record about her marijuana
use on TV, in print media and on online outlets.
Benzinga decided to catch up with this tech industry legend and ask about her recent investment in Caliva.
Getting Into Cannabis
Bartz said she always was “attuned to who was legalizing cannabis and what they were trying to do.”
The former CEO said she hadn't considered using the drug until a “fellow executive” suggested she tried a cannabis cream for her
bad knees.
“You know, he’s a 60-year-old tennis player,” Bartz said. “So, I said, ‘tell me about it,’ and I went into my first dispensary
to get some Papa & Barkley’s [products] … and I thought, ‘man this is crazy.’ I mean crazy good, because people were willing
to listen to what your ailment was and offer suggestions."
Bartz started by buying some rub and had soon visited five dispensaries and then tried cannabis tincture.
"I was absolutely sold."
Bartz said she's convinced about 50 people to try cannabis products like creams and tinctures, explaining that they've helped
her cut down from a dozen Advils a day to none.
The Caliva Experience
After visiting dozens of dispensaries and preaching cannabis’ properties far and wide for quite some time, a friend of Bartz’s
husband invited her to check out a Caliva grow facility.
“I got to see the growing under the lights, the pressing and rolling, the quality of the people and how seriously they took the
testing, the science and so forth," she said. "I said, ‘you know what, this is going to blow open once people realize how many
aspects of cannabis can help them.'"
Having seen Caliva’s operations and tested the company’s products, Bartz said she decided she wanted a piece of the action.
“If somebody had just walked up to me and said, ‘would you invest in Caliva?’ I would say 'I don’t think so,'” she
said.
“But the fact that I had actually tried products and then sort of took my business head and looked at the quality of the
management and looked at the operation: it was just obvious.”
Caliva will allocate most of the $75 million raised to a “war chest” that will be used to expand the company’s portfolio and
customer base. This is Carol Bartz’s first cannabis investment. Joe Montana, for his part, invested
in cannabis media outlet HERB
in 2017, through his investment firm Liquid 2 Ventures, where he serves as a general partner.
Related Links:
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Aurora
Cannabis Revenue More Than Doubles Quarter-Over-Quarter
Photo by Yahoo! Blog via Wikimedia.
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