Headset, an analytics startup for the nascent marijuana industry, closed a $12.1 million Series A funding round backed by prominent investors.

The round was led by Poseidon Asset Management, an early Juul investor that's raising a $75 million venture fund to go after marijuana startups, and included middle-market private-equity fund AFI Capital Partners and Canopy Rivers, the venture arm of the publicly traded marijuana cultivator Canopy Growth.

PopCom, a leading Black-owned automated retail technology company specializing in smart vending and kiosk solutions, has announced its plans to develop a new blockchain-powered product ecosystem that enables cannabis, pharmaceutical and alcohol retailers to automate the sale of government-regulated products. The company is inviting forward-thinking investors to join them in bringing transformative technology to retail via their Security Token Offering (STO)–a public fundraising round that allows to anyone invest in the future of retail. The minimum investment is $252 and the team is looking to raise $945,000 in a 90 day period.

Buds

The North American Marijuana Index is starting off the new year on a positive note with a few budding stocks of note.

The Index, which tracks the leading cannabis stocks in the US and Canada, was up 6.1% to 221.65.

Terra Tech Corp (OTCQX:TRTC) was one of the best-performing cannabis stocks, up about 12% to US$0.64 on Wednesday. The cannabis-focused agriculture company’s merger with Golden Leaf Holdings fell through earlier this month.

Golden Leaf Holdings Ltd (CSE:GLH) (OTCQB:GLDFF) shares jumped more than 18% to US$0.12. The Toronto-based cannabis company recently named William Kulczycki as its new CEO.

Global Marijuana Vaporizer Consumption Market 2018 report focuses on the major drivers and restraints for the global key players. It also provides analysis of the market share, segmentation, revenue forecasts and geographic regions of the market.

The Marijuana Vaporizer Consumption market report is an extensive analysis of this business sphere, that has been touted to be one of most profitable business verticals in recent times. The study enumerates the total valuation of this business space currently, in addition to presenting a succinct segmentation of the industry, the expansion opportunities, as well as its regional expanse.

What does this report cover?

Market Drivers & Challenges

Imagine producing a product at $0.05 and selling it at $16 – or a 31,900% gross profit.

What you are imagining is one of the most efficient cannabis operations in the world today.

Wayland Group (WAYL.CN; OTC:MRRCF) can produce cannabis at $0.05 a gram in South American and sells cannabis for up to $16 in some European markets.

How do they do it?

With a simple, but powerful business strategy:

They focus on the lowest cost production methods.

Produce product in countries with weaker currencies.

Sell into the highest-paying markets that have strong currencies.

Shopify Inc (TSX:SHOP)(NYSE:SHOP) has had a fantastic run in 2018, all things considered. Although its shares have fallen about 13% in the past week, they’re still up over 30% year-to-date. Shopify’s gains this year are particularly impressive compared to the S&P/TSX Composite Index, which is down 10%.

But with large and growing (non-adjusted) losses, why is Shopify able to outclass all other Canadian tech stocks–when some of its competitors are consistently pumping out profits?

There are three basic reasons. I’ll start with the most obvious: growth.

A startup cannabis person to person network is revolutionizing the entire marijuana community from Washington DC To Canada and back again. Everything from selling and buying marijuana to how each individual in the community connect with each other to jobs and community portals, Leafedin (https://leafedin.org) fills all those needs.

This platform provides an easy and direct way to locate local marijuana of the best quality and instantly connects buyers to sellers and vice versa. It also serves as a middle ground between marijuana growers and employers to meet and connect with skilled labors in the marijuana industry.

The Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd. (the "Company" or "TGOD") (TSX: TGOD) (US: TGODF) is pleased to announce the launch of its brand new experiential patient and consumer website focused on delivering the absolute best online experience in the industry.

After a long wait, Vancouver-based AgraFlora finally received a cultivation license from Health Canada in October for the AAA Heidelberg facility, in London, Ontario, of which AgraFlora currently owns 56 per cent. In addition to Heidelberg, AgraFlora also runs a 2.2-million sq. ft. cannabis propagation greenhouse in Delta, BC, and is a member of industry heavyweight Canopy Growth Corp’s “CraftGrow” program which partners Canopy with smaller, high-quality operations.

AgraFlora President and CEO Derek Ivany says that through the Cannmart deal his company will be helping to supply the highest quality flower to medical marijuana patients across Canada.

“Hey, look at the stock!” It was a Thursday in late September in the Colorado offices of Leafbuyer technologies, a small tech company focused on cannabis. Like most startups, it’s a little obsessed with its stock price, which it has a staffer assigned to monitor. This day, it was going wild.

Usually, Leafbuyer’s stock would do about 200,000 to 300,000 trades in a day. This day, there had been three million by noon. By close, it done $10 million worth of trades, ending up by more than 60 percent.