Pax Labs
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The legalization of cannabis and hemp for medicinal and recreational use in states across the U.S. and in Canada has opened up a huge vein of green, green cash for startups.
Two entrepreneurs tantalized early on by the smell of dank profits are Pax Labs CEO Bharat Vasan and Eaze and Wayv founder Keith McCarty. They will join us on stage at Disrupt SF to hash out the opportunities for investors and help founders avoid seeing their vision go up in smoke.
Bharat Vasan took over as chief executive at Pax Labs in February 2018. Before that, he served as president and COO at August Home, which sold to Assa Abloy in 2017. Prior to August Home, Vasan was co-founder and COO at Basis Science, which sold to Intel in 2018 for a reported $100 million. Vasan was also at Electronic Arts from 2002 to 2010, where he went from senior manager of Mergers & Acquisitions to serving as CFO and COO.
Pax Labs’ valuation, as of its latest $420 million funding round in April of this year, was at $1.7 billion. The company, which makes cannabis vaporizers, has plans to use the funding for international expansion and new products, but Vasan also hinted at a data play in this new market.
“People know about different kinds of alcohol,” said Vasan, in an interview in April. “They may know that they’re a beer person or a wine person. But none of that exists within cannabis. They see names like ‘Lemon Haze’ and ‘Cherry Fizz’ and they don’t know what that is. These are all really awesome names for a band but not great to let you know what you’re consuming. We want to provide more clarity around what that means.”
How Pax Labs plans to do this is unclear, but we’re hoping to learn more about it in October.
Keith McCarty, founder and CEO of Wayv, has a rich history in the tech space and as an entrepreneur. After spending five years at Yammer, and then Microsoft following the acquisition, McCarty went on to found Eaze, a legal cannabis delivery platform.
And while Eaze has continued to grow alongside the cannabis market itself, it put a new problem on McCarty’s radar. The supply chain logistics of the cannabis industry, combined with the fast-changing regulatory market, presents an opportunity for one startup to solve for this problem. McCarty wants that to be Wayv, a new venture that has raised $5 million in funding.
Wayv wants to be the Eaze of the enterprise, connecting licensed cannabis companies to licensed brands to provide next-day delivery of cannabis products.
These two titans will join us at Disrupt SF in October to discuss the changes in this market and the opportunities appearing before the tech world as a result of those changes.
Disrupt SF runs October 2 – October 4 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Tickets are available here.
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The FDA has its eye on Juul Labs, the e-cigarette company that has captured nearly half of the $2 billion e-cig market.
Yesterday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced a new initiative called the Youth Tobacco Prevention Plan. While the agency is focused on making sure kids don’t have easy access to any e-cigs, the Juul vaporizer seems to be of particular concern to them.
As part of the initiative, the FDA has sent a request for information to Juul Labs in an effort to understand why young people are so attracted to the product.
Over the past year, a number of reports have suggested that teen vape use, especially with the Juul, is steeply on the rise.
The request is for documents related to “product marketing; research on the health, toxicological, behavioral or physiologic effects of the products, including youth initiation and use; whether certain product design features, ingredients or specifications appeal to different age groups; and youth-related adverse events and consumer complaints associated with the products.”
In response, Juul Labs issued a press release announcing its plan to combat underage use. The strategy includes an initial investment of $30 million over the next three years going towards independent research, youth and parent education and community engagement efforts. Juul Labs also said it will support federal and state initiatives to raise the legal minimum purchase age to 21+. The company website has required that purchasers be 21 or older since August 2017.
Here’s what Juul CEO Kevin Burns had to say about it:
Our company’s mission is to eliminate cigarettes and help the more than one billion smokers worldwide switch to a better alternative. We are already seeing success in our efforts to enable adult smokers to transition away from cigarettes and believe our products have the potential over the long-term to contribute meaningfully to public health in the U.S. and around the world. At the same time, we are committed to deterring young people, as well as adults who do not currently smoke, from using our products. We cannot be more emphatic on this point: No young person or non-nicotine user should ever try JUUL.
Juul Labs is not the only organization that the FDA is cracking down on. The agency said it had sent out 40 warning letters to retailers selling e-cigs, including the Juul, to minors. Some of those retailers were caught as the result of a ‘blitz’ that has been underway since the beginning of April.
The agency has also asked eBay to take down all listings of Juul vaporizers, which run the risk of being sold to minors.
Alongside the FDA’s request for information from Juul Labs, the agency is also sending out similar letters to other e-cig manufacturers.
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PAX Labs has a new CEO. The company, which makes loose-leaf vaporizers, has brought on Bharat Vasan as Chief Executive Officer. Vasan has spent the last 15 years in consumer hardware, serving as the President and COO of August Home, which was acquired by Swedish lock maker Assa Abloy in 2017. Before August, Vasan was the cofounder of Basis (a fitness-based wearable company), which was acquired… Read More
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Nicotine vaporizer companies have a bit of a conundrum. While, legally, they can’t market themselves as smoking cessation devices, most vapers are current or former cigarette smokers. In fact, the CDC says that fewer than 4 percent people who had never tried traditional cigarettes have ever tried using a vaporizer. I’m a smoker. It’s disgusting. I hate it. I’ve quit… Read More
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