Deal Abstract

https://www.seedinvest.com/goodearthorganics/series.a

Enriched organic soil for cannabis and hemp growers. Larger startup with product and revenue established.

Financials (VRB)

|Question|Notes|
|---|---|---|
|1. Fundraising Target? |$10000000|
|2. Fundraised So Far?|$613303|
|3. Pre-Money Valuation?|$23408305|
|4. Previous Year's Annual Revenue |$3088256|
|5. Previous Year's Annual Net Income (+ Profitable, - Burning Cash) |~$-1121227|

Source

The 6 Calacanis Characteristics ("Sow Passion, Not easy mediocrity", or S2 P6 N18)

Criteria Yes/No
1. A startup that is based in SV? False: Cave Junction, OR
2. Has at least 2 founders? True: Two
3. Has product in the market? True:
4. 6 months of continuous user growth or 6 months of revenue? True: 2018 revenue was 2.154m and in 2019 grew to 3.08m
5. Notable investors? False: No notable tech investors
6. Post-funding, will have 18 months of runway? True: At 1.8m will have 18 months, so it has a ways but will get in the ballpark
Source

The 7 Thiel Questions (Every Time Man Profits, Don't Dismiss Serendipity)

Question Score Notes
1. Engineering? 3 Soil explicitly enriched for cannibis
2. Timing? 3 Cannibis is growing right now
3. Monopoly? 2 Not sure but good revenue
4. People? 2 Team seems well, this is reasonably corporate at $23m
5. Distribution? 2 Traditional business
6. Durability? 3 Very durable, not easy for anyone to just come in and build another soil company for cannibis
7. Secret? 1 Enriched soil for cannibis grower is going to be a venture sized business

What has to go right for the startup to return money on investment:

1. Continuing growing and scaling efficiently; 2. Support increasing margins and profitability of their vendors; 3. Fund research that show their soil is unequivocally better.

What the Risks Are

1. The entire market is $3bn as they said, so to grow to a $1bn in market cap it'd have to capture 10% of the market in the next few years; 2. Soil is not venture backable; 3. Larger producers of enriched soil provide their own cocktails of enriched soil for organic hemp growers.

Bonus Muhan's Notes

Oregon just passed the law legalizing a great deal of drugs under supervision, so expected medical/psychedelic/cannabis innovation to continue coming from there.

Updates

This is where I’ll post updates about the company. This way all my notes from offering to post-offering updates will be on one page.

Review these deal memos every time the startup raises a new round

Test if original thesis still applies


So, did I invest?

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Other thoughts, questions, comments, or concerns? Write me at mail@muhanzhang.com and let me know.