When the team at Eastcoasterdam Gardens set out to secure funding to construct a cannabis cultivation facility in Massachusetts, Joseph Lupo, the company’s co-founder and director of cultivation found many of the deals from potential investors demoralizing. “They were gross,” he said. “I don’t know any other word to describe them other than gross.” Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and cut off the team’s in-person networking opportunities. Lupo said the only channel the company had left was its social media platforms. “We’ve always had a presence on social media and because of that, Mainvest was really the best route for us to use what we thought was one of our best weapons: social media,” he said. “It’s an online platform, and it’s more in tune with that type of investor—the common person.”Mainvest launched in 2018 as a crowdfunding platform to allow small businesses to raise capital from their local communities. It launched its first cannabis offering a few weeks ago with Eastcoasterdam after realizing that the industry is plagued with predatory investors—and after seeing building momentum toward federal legalization.
Jim Higdon, Cannabis Business Times, 09/10/2021 10:36:00