Brendan Kennedy of Privateer Holdings, left, and Geoff Lewis of Founders Fund. (TechCrunch)

Video: Legal pot’s biggest investors on why your cannabis start-up idea sucks

When TechCrunch TV spoke with two of legal weed’s biggest investors about some potentially hot areas in the cannabis start-up space, the money men didn’t have the best news for entrepreneurs.

Brendan Kennedy of Leafly and Marley Natural owner Privateer Holdings and Geoff Lewis of Founders Fund, which recently invested $75 million into Privateer, spoke plainly about financial opportunities in the legal pot business while at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY.

When asked about investments in the cultivation space, Kennedy didn’t seem too excited as he compared recreational pot to other commodities including wine and craft beer.

What about delivery services? Should budding ganjapreneurs start a competitor to Eaze or Meadow? Lewis didn’t seem so sure about that: “We’re fine walking regulatory gray lines as investors … the delivery space pushes it pretty far to the limit in terms of the regulatory and legal stuff around that today.”

And point of sale systems specific to the marijuana industry? Looking to the long term, Lewis said, “I’m not sure that it’s going to need to be so specialized.”

Surely the vaporizer market is the place to invest, right? Maybe not.

After Lewis mentioned how competitive it is, Kennedy added that the marijuana industry isn’t necessarily the place to be for innovation in the oil-based vaporizer space because of the tobacco industry’s larger share there: “I’m not sure I’d look to the cannabis industry to lead there.”

TechCrunch TV’s Josh Constine almost seemed a little defeated at the end of the interview: “If you’re like, ‘Man, I’ve got a great idea for a weed delivery start-up or a testing start-up,’ it might not work out as well as you guys think.”


Watch the video (enable the fullscreen function for best viewing):