Milford pot grower wants to help small marijuana companies
Photo | Zachary Comeau
Sira Naturals President and CEO Michael Dundas in the company's Milford facility.
Hoping to give entrepreneurs a leg up amid the crush of businesses fighting for a piece of the newly-legal marijuana market, a company that grows and processes pot plans to launch a small-business accelerator program that it is billing as the first in the nation.
Sira Naturals, which grows more than 60 strains of marijuana and turns it into cookies, caramels and other edibles, is partnering with G-Tek Labs to start the Sira Accelerator to "provide cannabis entrepreneurs an immediate path-forward, slicing through barriers to entry, and accelerating them to profitability."
"What we're really aiming to do is help small businesses, small entrepreneurs who are interested in getting into the cannabis space, dramatically reduce some of the key barriers to entry," Michael Dundas, president and CEO of Sira Naturals, told the News Service. He added, "Trying to cut through the red tape and bring people to the market quickly is the core of this."
The Sira Accelerator program will be a 12-week program designed for entrepreneurs who already have a concept for their product but need a boost to get out of the starting blocks, Dundas said. He said the program is not intended for people looking to learn how to make edibles, but rather people who already have "a clear idea of what their product is" and a "sense of the marketplace."
The program will be open to organizations based in Massachusetts that have obtained or plan to apply for one of the Cannabis Control Commission's marijuana product manufacturer microbusiness applications. Dundas said the plan is to run four 12-week programs per year, with representatives of up to five organizations in each program. One spot in each program will be reserved for an entrepreneur who qualifies for the CCC's economic empowerment program, he said.
The two biggest barriers to entry in the marijuana world, Dundas said, are capital and time. A business that hopes to produce marijuana-infused products would need an extraction laboratory to produce cannabis oil and then an infusion kitchen to make whatever product the oil will become part of.
"These days, in order to make consistent, high-quality and replicable products at scale, you really need to invest millions of dollars if you want to compete in the marketplace," Dundas, whose company operates RMDs in Cambridge, Somerville and Needham as well as a cultivation facility in Milford, said.
Dundas said the accelerator program will include a "hands-on, in the kitchen component" that will be taught at the Sira Naturals cultivation facility in Milford and a more traditional classroom-style component, which will be taught at G-Tek Labs' space in South Boston.
Not only will participating microbusinesses receive expertise and guidance from Sira Naturals, but they will also receive an allotment of the cannabis oil that Sira Naturals produces, the key -- and, according to Dundas, expensive -- component to marijuana-infused products.
Michelle Bennett, a Cape Cod businesswoman who operates Healing Tree Edibles, said the price of cannabis oil is "astronomically expensive" and said securing the oil is one of her greatest challenges.
"Without a program like this, there is no way I would be even close to starting a microbusiness in the cannabis industry for at least a few more years," she said. "This program alone will allow for small microbusinesses to be able to get their oils they need, and to also be able to have the right guidance for helping them to write a business plan or think about other parts of their businesses."
Dundas said Sira Naturals plans to begin accepting applications for its accelerator program sometime after June and hopes to start the first classes in September.
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