It’s an industry that boasts the largest pot producers in the world and more than 70 publicly-traded cannabis companies listed on Canadian stock exchanges. Since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government introduced legislation to legalize recreational cannabis last year, hundreds of millions of investment dollars have poured into numerous cannabis coffers. One analysis conducted in March 2017 by investment firm Canaccord Genuity estimated that Canadian marijuana companies have attracted roughly $700 million in financing since early 2016.

From high net worth investors to family offices that manage the wealth of the super-rich, to venture capitalists, and private equity funds, Canada’s cannabis industry has had no trouble luring those with deep pockets. And like most other industries in Canada, it’s dominated by white men.

Here’s a non-exhaustive selection of some of the top investors in legal Canadian cannabis businesses.

Chuck Rifici, co-founder of Canopy Growth

Photo courtesy Chuck Rifici

He’s been referred to as the “godfather of Canadian weed” for his prolific involvement in the industry from its infancy, including co-founding Tweed Inc., one of the first companies granted a license to produce and sell medical cannabis by Health Canada in 2013. It was renamed Canopy Growth, the world’s largest marijuana company.

As former chief financial officer of the Liberal Party during the last election when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was campaigning on a promise to legalize recreational weed, Chuck Rifici is often demonized by grassroots cannabis communities for having a possible advantage when it comes to lobbying for the desires of Big Weed. But he brushes off such concerns as baseless.

Still, he’s become one of the biggest winners in Canadian cannabis, telling VICE News his public cannabis portfolio has a current market value of at least $115.5 million.

It all started with a $100,000 investment into Canopy in 2013, Rifici explained. “And flowed from there.”

“Actual dollars that I put in are far less across the board as these have all appreciated significantly,” Rifici said. “I don't hold anything I invested in prior to 2016 and I haven't made any investments in 2018 yet.”

Rifici added that while he’s mostly invested in Canadian licensed producers at the moment, that will likely shift more towards product-based companies. “I think that is the category where I think the next big winners will be post-legalization,” he said.

Jason Wild, JW Asset Management LLC

As with many others like him who lead investment firms, Jason Wild prefers to remain out of the spotlight. But the New York-based founder and chief investment officer of his namesake JW Asset Management LLC, is known in Canadian cannabis business circles for being one of the earliest investors in some of the biggest licensed producers before they went public.

And the timing was impeccable.

His fund’s initial USD $7 million investment about four years ago in medical cannabis companies such as Mettrum, since acquired by Canopy Growth, has since ballooned to $215 million. Estimates suggest the fund owns around 1.3 million shares in Canopy that are worth around $32 million. Other initial investments at the time included Canntrust and Organigram. The total fund is worth $830 million in total, and it’s one of the main U.S. institutional investors in Canadian cannabis.

Most recently, Wild was tapped to as the Chairman of Mississauga-based TerrAscend, a publicly-traded cannabis company that owns licensed producer Solace Health, after it secured $52,500,000 private placement funding in part from JW Asset.

“Our goal for TerrAscend is nothing short of a leadership position in the fast growing worldwide legal Cannabis markets,” Wild said at the time.

Lorne and Alan Gertner, Hill & Gertner Capital Corp.

The father-son duo are most famously known for Tokyo Smoke, their high-end retail business, which sells very nice looking pot paraphernalia and other devices for the smoker or vaper in you. But they’re also two of earliest and biggest investors in the Canadian cannabis space.

Lorne Gertner, Founder, Hill & Gertner Capital Corp.

Lorne was one of the co-founders of the Cronos Group, which owns two major licensed producers — Peace Naturals Project Inc., and Original BC Ltd. The company has a market capitalization of about $1.6 billion, besides holding a portfolio of minority investments in a few other licensed producers.

Although Lorne, speaking to VICE News, would not disclose exactly how large his overall investment in the cannabis space is, he claims that Hill & Gertner Capital have over 50 investments spread out between public and private companies that run into the “tens of millions”. Hill & Gertner have a stake in both Canopy Growth Corporation, and Aphria Inc., two of the largest licensed producers in Canada. In addition to that, Gertner says his company also has a significant investment in Green Acre Capital, a cannabis-related private fund that has raised approximately $25 million.

“I’m sure that everyone will claim that they are the biggest investors in this space. I think we are, but everyone has a different personal take on it.”

Paul Rosen, BreakWater Venture Capital

This somewhat elusive investor to the outside world is probably one of the most prominent within cannabis industry circles. A lawyer by training, Rosen leaped into the cannabis space back in 2012, when legalization seemed like a distant prospect. “My family thought I was absolutely crazy,” Rosen tells VICE News.

Over the past three years however, BreakWater has built a notable portfolio. Rosen says the company has 75 current investments in the cannabis industry, ranging from stakes in licensed producers like Canopy Growth, Supreme Pharmaceuticals and Hydropothecary, to ancillary businesses tied to pot like Tokyo Smoke, and Avicanna Inc., a biotech research company specializing in cannabinoid-based therapies. Each investment, claims Rosen, has ranged from as little as $50,000 to over $1,000,000, with the average investment standing at around $200,000.

Rosen’s largest positions are in The Cronos Group, which he co-founded with Lorne Gertner, and licensed producer Cannabis Wheaton of which he is a major shareholder, having invested $1,000,000 last May.

April Pride, Van der Pop

Two years ago, April Pride founded Van der Pop, a cannabis accessories brand geared toward women who prefer Holt Renfrew over head shops. The Seattle-based venture has since launched an e-commerce site offering Italian leather handbags and clutches with odour-proof pockets and a locked cannabis compartment. There’s also an assortment of grinder cards adorned with pink and red, UV-proof jars to store weed, and infused body balms and oils.

Van der Pop made its first foray into Canadian cannabis last year when it signed an exclusive deal to sell two strains of medical cannabis through Health Canada-licensed producer WeedMD. The move was heralded as the “first female-focused brand to launch cannabis in Canada.”

“I’m passionate about empowering women to take control of their sexual and reproductive health,” Pride told VICE News. And with Canada legalizing cannabis coupled with a President cracking down on it at home, Pride happily furthered her position in Canada.

Last year, Toronto-based upstart Tokyo Smoke acquired her company after securing $3 million in Series A fundraising. And the end of this month, licensed producer DOJA and Tokyo Smoke will merge to form a new company, Hiku, which has garnered a $10 million investment from LP Aphria, and aims to expand its cannabis production and retail abilities.

“Something could clearly go wrong in the U.S. when it comes to cannabis, but it certainly wouldn’t in Canada,” she said. “But at the same time, I am jumping into a vice industry. As a mom with two small children, I hope the way I feel about it actually turns out to be true.”

Brett Wilson, Green Acre Capital

The former investment banker and prominent entrepreneur is best known for his three seasons on CBC’s Dragons' Den, where he was often deemed to be one of the “nicer Dragons”, in contrast to the more-than-impolite Kevin O’Leary, now of Shark Tank fame. There are rumblings that Wilson has amassed a fortune of over one billion dollars — now we know some of that cash is going into the cannabis industry.

Wilson is one of three high net worth investors in Green Acre Capital, a Toronto-based cannabis fund that raised $25 million from Wilson, licensed producer Aphria Inc. (which incidentally former Dragon Arlene Dickinson is a major shareholder of), and York Plains Investment Corp., a family office.

“We are primarily invested in ancillary businesses related to cannabis — companies that sell software, hardware, or have some kind of niche R&D in the space,” Green Acre’s Managing Director Matt Shalhoub told VICE News.

This is Wilson’s first major foray into the cannabis space, a journey that he embarked on in late 2016, when investment dollars started heavily flowing into Canadian weed, as a result of the government’s decision to legalize recreational weed.