This is the piece of the puzzle that has been missing from our operations.
- Maddie Brown
RPN, Founder
MBL Apothecary
The Ekidna device… will enable better cultivation decisions, faster corrective actions, and more transparency to our customers.
- Austin Greenall
Business Manager
Purplefarm Genetics
IP will be the differentiator for cannabis companies moving forward as they try to establish market dominance.
- Tim Saunders
CFO (former)
Canopy Growth Corporation
The Challenge
Testing is an operational bottleneck for both cannabis growers and cannabis product manufacturers.
Without real-time data on THC and CBD levels in their products, companies can’t tune their processes. Failing to do so can cause the loss of entire crops or production runs (for example, in Arizona in 2020, 41% (7,000 acres) of hemp crops went unharvested due to THC levels that were too high).
Large cannabis growers and manufacturers have their own labs on-site, but these are expensive to build, staff and maintain. On-site labs also don’t fully solve the operational bottleneck problem because it takes about a day or two to complete a test.
Smaller growers and manufacturers who don’t have their own labs spend about $100-$300 per test to mail
samples to a professional lab service. It can take weeks for the results to come back.
Ekidna’s Solution
Provide fast, accurate, easy to operate, and decentralized testing for key cannabis potency markers: THC, THCa, CBD, and CBDa. Ekidna can provide reliable results in about five minutes.
Benefits for Organizations
Large companies get reduced testing time, increased testing flexibility, and greater operational efficiency.
“Testing is a key component in getting products to market faster. Anything that shortens the testing time frame is money saved in our operations.”
- Tim Saunders, CFO (former), Canopy Growth Corporation
Mid-size or smaller companies without their own lab can engage in more frequent testing and dramatically increase throughput. Sales cycles can shrink because they can sell their products to wholesalers earlier by providing accurate cannabinoid percentages.
How It Works
Competing Options
Ekidna offers a more complete solution than any of the other options available in the market:
- Laboratory-based solutions require immense time, expertise, and capital cost. These don’t meet the need for rapid, decentralized, and simple diagnostics.
- Alternative low-cost solutions are limited to testing specific samples.
- Some alternatives are being tested for portable applications but they lack accuracy and are still bulky, inconvenient, and relatively expensive.
- FT-IR based solutions are not precise enough for quantification. They are only useful for identification purposes, or absolute pure sample quantification.
The Opportunity
Cannabis growing and cannabis product manufacturing are new industries, but they have great promise. The cannabis market in North America is currently estimated at $27 billion in terms of annual sales, with $1.3 billion spent on testing alone by commercial growers in North America in 2020.
According to investment bank Jefferies Group LLC, the global cannabis industry will be worth $130 billion by 2029 due to the legalization in the Americas and Europe. Others, such as Grandview Research, project a CAGR of 24% to $66.3 billion by 2025.
Timing: Early Mover Advantage
The timing will never be better for the release of cannabis industry technology. Cannabis decriminalization and legalization are gaining momentum, with legalization in Canada having taken place in 2018. The US has also begun its legalization journey, and recreational use is permitted in 18 states and Washington DC as of June 2021. Many more states have legalized or decriminalized the use of medical marijuana and/or CBD oil.
Ekidna is offering the right solution to testing challenges in the infancy of a market that is projected to grow exponentially.
The Company
Research on Ekidna’s tech began at the University of Ottawa in 2015, and the company was founded in 2019. Ekidna spent 2020 working with startup accelerators and pursuing customer validation, product development and pilot trials.
One exclusive patent license, one patent filed and more on the way.
The Team
The Ekidna team covers all the bases, encapsulating both business acumen and technical expertise.
An Exciting Investment
Opportunity
Currently at the seed stage with exciting growth prospects, Ekidna is looking for additional
investors to help finance our next phase of growth. Talk to us to find out more about Ekidna’s
potential, and become a part of our exciting journey.