Cannacurio #61: Privately Held MSOs – Who Are They and Where Can You Find Them?

Be the first to know when new content like this is available!

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive notifications of new posts, local news and industry insights.

Thanks very much! Your submission has been received!

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Our research team is constantly reviewing licenses and the companies that own them. While many of the curious industry watchers focus on the publicly traded companies; There is a very different set of private companies that have quietly acquired licenses across state lines. We think this is where the evil watchers spend their time. These companies are harder to track due to a lack of public filings, but the licensing information can tell an interesting story.

Since we launched our Cannabiz Intelligence™ product last year, we’ve curated a variety of company indices to help clients uncover companies they may not be aware of. This week we’re evaluating privately held MSOs, which we define as companies that operate in at least two states and are unlisted.

• PharmaCann, Parallel and Nectar Markets were the largest private MSOs we identified.
• Holistic operates in 10 states, while PharmaCann has facilities in nine states.
• Massachusetts was the most popular state to gain a foothold with 17 private MSOs that had a facility there.

Here are the top 10 of the 52 we track. To make the top 10, these companies needed at least 23 facilities. The list is headed by two well-known names: PharmaCann and Parallel/Surterra. Parallel tried to go public through a SPAC, but this transaction failed.

Another measure of the reach of these companies is the number of states in which they operate. Since entering a state may require setting up a seed-to-sale investment, this is no small boost:

Finally, we looked at all the states where any of these 52 MSOs operated and found that they cover 30 states. In total, we found 187 establishments owned by these companies. The most populous states are below:

The biggest observation we made was the clustering of Midwestern states on the list, including Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio. As we continue our research, we will no doubt discover more of these companies and their licenses. Customers of our Cannabiz Intelligence offering have access to the entire list and much more. Details here > https://www.cannabiz.media/ab/business-intelligence

Ed Keating is co-founder of Cannabiz Media and oversees the company’s data research and government relations efforts. He has spent his career working with and advising information companies on compliance issues. Ed has led product, marketing and sales while overseeing complex, multi-jurisdictional product lines in the securities, corporate, UCC, security, environmental and human resources markets.

At Cannabiz Media, Ed enjoys the challenge of working with regulatory bodies around the world as he and his team gather corporate, financial and licensing information to track the people, products and companies in the cannabis economy.

Ed graduated from Hamilton College and received his MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University.

Cannacurio is a weekly column from Cannabiz Media featuring insights from the most comprehensive licensing data platform. Check out Cannacurio’s posts and podcasts for the latest updates and information.