Ambitious U.K. company Cannaray has set out to be a leading European cannabis player after successfully securing £7.8 million of investment.
The second £3.5 million Cannaray fund-raising round is underway with the latest tranche earmarked for a U.K. cannabis production facility and to grow its German sales team. The initial slew of cash was used to purchase U.K. drugs company Therismos and cement relations with horticultural firm Newey, the largest in the U.K., with 4 million square feet of greenhouses.
One Of Europe’s Leaders
The purchase of Therismos, has allowed Cannaray to tout itself as one of the ‘highest revenue generating European cannabis companies’ with estimated sales of £19m this year. Cannaray has assembled an impressive array of senior management talent and in its investor pitch the company sets out its ambitions in both the medical cannabis and CBD spaces.
In the former it says it is in the process of securing a cannabis growing licence in partnership with Newey, which will see it aim to ‘develop novel delivery and formulations of CBD and THC’. By the end of the year it will launch in the U.K. and Germany and Poland in 2020, and it is in talks to acquire U.K. pharmaceutical distribution firm Elite Healthcare Distribution.
Bozy Pet Range Launch
In the CBD arena it has developed a range CBD products including; capsules, tinctures, skincare and the ‘Bozy’ CBD range for pets.The company expects the European CBD market to reach almost £7 billion in 10 years, whilst over the same period it foresees the medical cannabis industry – with higher barrier entry requirements – to be worth over £50 billion.
Cannaray chief executive officer Scott Maguire has decades of experience in health sector investment banking and says the firm wants to become ‘not only the leading European cannabis player, but eventually one of the global leaders in research and development of improved cannabis therapies’, reports City AM.
From Zero To Billions
He became involved in the industry after using CBD to successfully treat his Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, called Bozy, in its successful battle with terminal cancer. He then went on to use it for his own arthritis, and says it helped his golf, both as a pain reliever and a way to manage stress.
He told the agFunderNews website that after seeing the growth of cannabis in the U.S. where companies ‘were going from zero to being worth billions of dollars, and I started wondering if that could happen in Europe’.
Non-executive board members include; Edward Stanton McLean, a former managing director of JP Morgan, Chris Sullivan, ex-deputy group CEO of RBS and ex-CEO corporate banking of Santander, and Sir Nigel Knowles, ex-global co-chairman of DLA Piper law firm.
