I'm very pleased to introduce our next presentation here at the Planet Microcap Showcase Toronto in partnership with Microcap Club. Up next is a presentation or fireside chat with Cannara Biotech . Cannara, oh my gosh, wow, I wish I could do a takeover, but it's Cannara. The person who's going to be hosting this fireside chat will be Matthieu Martin from Rivemont Microcap Fund.
Thanks, Bobby. Nice try. Thanks everyone for joining. I'll start by disclosing that the Rivemont Microcap Fund that I manage is a shareholder of Cannara. Nick, let's get started with the quick, one-minute elevator pitch on Cannara Biotech.
Just disclosures behind me we have to go through. Thank you, Matthew, for hosting, and thank you, Planet Micro for hosting us. We're Cannara Biotech . We're a licensed producer of cannabis based out of Quebec. We have two locations in Quebec: a 625,000 sq ft indoor facility, what we call Farnham, and a 1 million sq ft purpose-built hybrid indoor greenhouse. I know that was long to say, but it is a best-in-class asset. We actually purchased it from The Green Organic Dutchman back in 2021. It was built over $250 million. We're going to go a little bit more detail in that, but what makes Cannara who we are is we're actually profitable. We're cash flow positive. We're free cash flow positive. Very few licensed producers are able to achieve that.
We're on a run rate of 50,000 kg per year, and we can actually double our capacity organically. We have also one of the best-in-class CapEx profiles. We can invest organically within our infrastructure, our owned assets, and double our growth and double from where we are today. We're focused on premium, but also on the value pricing side of things. That allows us to achieve our scale. Our assets allow us to achieve our scale, and the pricing and value proposition of products allow us to achieve demand. We've been operating since 2019. Like I said, we're very few of the profitable companies in Canadian cannabis. We have the profile to continue expanding and become one of the leading Canadian cannabis companies here.
That's great. Great overview. I always like to start with an overview of the team. Nick, can you tell us more about yourself and your role with the company? Because you wear multiple hats.
Yeah, I'm not a traditional CFO. I'm CFO by profession. I studied, you know, I did my background in CA, CPA, sorry. I was in real estate before, but I woke up and felt like a job, right? Canadian cannabis started to legalize in 2017. I was an investor myself, emotional investor. That's, you know, investing 101, don't do that. I was emotionally invested. I followed a bunch of these companies. I guess it was a good thing that they lost a lot of my money. I went on a vengeance plan to build it myself. That's where I really found, for me at least, where my passion and work kind of merged together. I joined the company April 2019, pretty much a week after they went public and got the financial statements out, built my finance team. We were 10 people. Built my finance team.
You can imagine an accountant going into a grow, you know, growing a grow that's starting up and giving beans, the seeds, and the genetics and telling what the grow team should grow and what product design should do and all that stuff. It was a challenge for me to get through the barriers, but I kept pushing and I knew the vision. Now today I'm the CFO, so I can cost everything. I do these events, PR, IR, but I'm 100. I've created every single product in the company, all the branding. I'm in charge of sales. I get to see from A to Z of the company. That's what I think is one of our competitive advantages. I'll go into our CEO, but for myself, being able to understand the business A to Z and also from a finance side gives me that competitive advantage.
Like I tell everyone, why most companies failed in our industry is that there's no playbook. No amount of money. I couldn't write a $10 million check to somebody to give me the playbook of how to build a Canadian cannabis company from the scale, the operation, the grow to the actual products that we develop.
Yeah, I mean, you touched on the CEO's background as well. I think that's super interesting. Can you talk about the CEO and if there are any other key people that you want to highlight as well?
Yeah, I thank my lucky stars for finding Cannara and finding a company where the CEO is the most hands-on CEO I've ever met, probably in any industry, let alone the Canadian cannabis industry. Zohar Krivorot, you know, wealthy investor, businessman, was focused on IT in his past life, built several IT businesses, sold them, and then Canadian cannabis legalized. As you know, there was a huge green rush. He saw that opportunity, the business opportunity, and he saw that no one was doing it in Quebec. Quebec is special because Quebec has the lowest cost of electricity and one of the lowest costs of labor in the country, which so happens to be 70% of the cost of cultivating 1 g of cannabis. Having the infrastructure in Quebec was extremely important for us.
Zohar saw that, saw the opportunity, and founded Cannara, bought the first Farnham facility, the 625,000 sq f t facility for $12 million from a partner, Olymbeck. Olymbeck is a key investor and sits on our board, who started the project with us, gave us the first $12 million to buy the Farnham facility. Also, that $250 million asset, we bought it in 2021 for $27 million. That was a raise that was done by Olymbeck. We have access to capital between the CEO and Olymbeck. They own over 50% of the company. Because we're well connected in Montreal, about seven family offices own the rest of the 30%. There's about a 30% float, a trading float, public trading float. What's special about Zohar, like I was saying, is that he invested into Canadian cannabis.
Like most companies, you hire at the beginning, you hired your master grower, you hired your team to grow the cannabis, you know, pay the people to do the work. Unfortunately, there was no experience. There was no one that was able to grow at our scale, understand the plant at that time, five years ago. Now it's a bit of a different story. We've learned, but five years ago, there was no one to do that. Zohar saw that opportunity and learned how to grow cannabis. With our facility, we had 52 harvests in a year, our small facility, 52 harvests in a year. He outgrew any legacy grower that's been growing for the past 10- 20 years because you usually get about two to three harvests a year when you're doing it on the legacy side. He went through a huge learning curve.
Today, he is our master grower. He is the one that has built every SOP from the ground up, knows every single plant, how it's supposed to grow. He enjoys it. We need that type of hands-on experience at the top to be able to create a consistent operation. I think that's our management team. We have Zohar on the ground running the grow, the cultivation. We have myself who understands the finance. I understand the sales, the marketing, and all that. Zohar's brother is Avi Krivorot. He's our CTO. He's built our whole IT infrastructure. We grow automated. Other than harvesting the plant, there's manual labor tasks. When we plant a plant for three to four months, there's one person that goes in the room. It's all automatically grown. We've created a proprietary IT system built around the way we grow and our facility.
Combined with that, that's our executive leadership team. We have that experience at the top to excel at Canadian cannabis. That's what we're going to do.
Awesome. Let's double click on the Valleyfield facility. You mentioned you started in Farnham, smaller footprint, and then you got the opportunity to acquire the larger Valleyfield asset. Can you tell us more about how that came about?
Yeah, so Farnham, the facility right behind me, that's the initial facility, 625,000 sq ft. We carved out about 200,000 sq ft of the facility for cannabis operation. The other 470,000 sq ft is leased out to long-term tenants, non-cannabis tenants. We have actually a public bit mining company, Bitfarm and a transport company. That generates about $4 million of cash flow per year that we, at the beginning, were reinvesting and still reinvesting back in the business. Farnham was the initial grow, but when we bought Valleyfield, which I'll show you in the next slide, we repurposed the amount of cultivation space that we needed at Farnham. Farnham became a hub for processing cannabis, packaging cannabis, and shipping out the cannabis because we had bought the Valleyfield facility. Anyone that's come to see this facility knows that this is a world-class facility.
There's not one facility in the world that's been built for cannabis that's spent over $250 million in construction. We bought this when basically the facility was built, and the company, unfortunately, didn't have enough money to plant a single plant of cannabis inside the facility. We were the lucky owners of it for $27 million. We bought it from BMO, the banker that was on that had security over the asset. BMO then became our banker back in 2021. Valleyfield, what's special about it? It has 600,000 sq ft of greenhouse, hybrid greenhouse. Usually, a greenhouse is one big open space. When you're cultivating cannabis, we have an extremely unique agricultural plant that we're working with. In tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, you grow one genetic, you grow that for the rest of the business life, and you keep dialing and becoming more efficient, and that's it.
With cannabis, there's this concept of genetics, and the customer actually wants genetic differentiation. Us, as the grower, we have to find those genetics while cultivating. Each genetic grows different than the other. They require different light, they require different nutrients, they require different light and water. Having a big open greenhouse where you can't control every single area of your greenhouse is detrimental to cannabis production. That's why a lot of greenhouses got converted and then repurposed back to growing cucumbers and tomatoes. Valleyfield is 600,000 sq ft, 24 rooms divided into 25,000 sq ft. I have 25,000 square footers, 24 of them right next to each other. We bought it in 2022. We started with one room. Today, we're at 12 rooms out of the 24. We're exactly 50% activated.
Our target is 100,000 kg per year, which is about $300 million of net revenue after I pay 30% to the government. We've set it. We're about on a run rate today. Last year, we posted it, or we're on a run rate because my year end is August. We're at about $105 million, $110 million of net revenue. We just turned on our last rooms, 11 and 12, at the end of July of this year. We're exactly right at that 50% check mark of building out Valleyfield. We feel like we've de-risked the operational aspect of it because we've proven out that we can turn on 12 rooms, we can grow quality cannabis, and we can sell quality cannabis out of those 12 rooms. Now, over the next three to four years, we're going to do the same thing with the next 50%.
Thank you. I'm glad you touched on the genetics because it's something that we've spoken about with Margaret at Rubicon this morning as well. I think people tend to think cannabis is a commodity, but there are competitive advantages in this sector. I think genetics, a strong genetics program, is one of them. I've seen that in the LPs that are winning right now in the market. What else can you tell us about Cannara's competitive advantages?
Genetics is absolutely important. A lot of companies fail to realize that. The problem is that genetics, you can't go out and buy genetics. You could, but they will never succeed in your facility. You actually have to test them within your facility in the way you grow. When you make that decision, you're making a decision to forego revenue, forego profit, because that phenol hunt, you're not going to be able to sell it. You have to take commercially viable rooms and turn it into R&D and invest in the future. That's a big decision to make, especially if you're trying to be profitable. What else is there? We have the management team that knows from the top down cannabis. We have state-of-the-art assets that we've acquired for $0.10 on the dollar. We're built in Quebec with the lowest cost of electricity and labor. We're 600 employees strong today.
We have a great team. We have three brands. All this revenue, over $100 million of revenue, was generated over three brands that we created organically. Really, it's two brands. My other brand is about 2%- 3% of our revenue right now. It's a CBD brand. Really, two brands make up most of our revenue. That's a unique feature in a licensed producer. Most LPs have many other brands. I think that infrastructure of the assets, the people, the know-how, the IP, all that really makes us, and being in Quebec, and being in Quebec is really important. Also, not only for the cost to grow, but selling, being a preferred vendor to Quebec. Quebec is the only province in Canada where marketing is not allowed. We can't pay data fees to sell our product. There's about 100 stores.
That's about one store per 100,000 people in Quebec versus one store per 10,000 people here in Ontario. What makes Quebec special, because of no marketing, no data fees paying to shelf space, is that the value proposition of your product, if your product actually sells or you have a really good value proposition and you sell it in Quebec, you will sell. You will make money and you'll make consistent revenue over and over again because it's hard to take market share away from a player that you can't buy shelf space. You can't market to the end consumer. The Quebec consumer actually is a very loyal consumer, which is very different from any other cannabis consumer outside of Quebec. Once a Quebec consumer tries a product, they are more likely than other consumers to repeat purchase that product.
Being in Quebec, we're number two right now with a 13% market share. We're seventh nationally. Quebec is about 50% of our revenues. The other 50% comes from the rest of Canada. We're in Ontario, we're in Alberta, and BC. We do a little business in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but we're really trying to do a slow and focused measured approach to our distribution, growing and scaling in Quebec. One other thing that just happened is Quebec is launching vapes in November. Vapes usually represent 15%- 20% of a province's revenue. Vapes were illegal until November in Quebec. There's an ability to add 15%- 20% additional revenue in that market where we hold 13%. We got accepted for five of the 25 SKUs that are going to be available for vapes. We have a huge shelf space of vapes.
That's going to be a really interesting catalyst for us going into November. I think that's what makes Cannara, you know, that's all our competitive advantages and what makes Cannara successful.
That's a pretty long list of competitive advantages. I like that. I'd like to talk a little bit more about brand loyalty. I'm curious, is there something special about the Quebec customer that, you know, why are they more loyal to brands? Are you seeing brand loyalty emerging also in the other provinces?
It's interesting. I don't know exactly. There's no study to say why the consumer is like that. It's very, from what I've seen in the market, I think because of the restrictions in marketing in Quebec and prior to when it wasn't legalized, Quebec was always the last one to get the different genetics. The supply wasn't huge in Quebec. Once we legalized in the marketing, I think the lack of marketing and the lack of consultation from the bartender, when you go into a retail store in Quebec and SQDC, and you say, can you recommend me a product? What do you need? I want to feel like this. The representative cannot recommend a product. They can show you a list of products, and then you would have to make that decision.
If you don't have that information, you're probably more apt to go with what you're used to, right? I think that's probably the major reason, which is amazing for a company like us where we're established in Quebec and we're building that brand loyalty. I think brand loyalty exists. It's hard to build, but if you have a great product, consistent product, and you're at the forefront of innovation from genetics to product development, consumers will want your brand. We have an online shop where we sell our branded clothing and branded accessories. We're probably the only LP that actually sells this product, right? We sell anywhere between $30,000- $50,000 a month of this type of product. This just continues to build that brand presence. We just have to continue executing. What's most important is being the forefront leader in innovation, genetics, and product development.
Can you give people a bit of a snapshot on, you know, financial performance? What's the track record? I think you have a very strong financial profile and also maybe touch on the growth we run with going forward. Where do you see growth opportunities for Cannara?
Yeah, so our latest quarter is Q3. That was May of 2025. We just completed our August of 2025, which is our year-end. That is only going to be disclosed in November of 2025. I can show you Q3 and the previous. Q3, we were on a run rate of $27 million of net revenue, that is after paying 32% to the government. Gross revenue is about $38 million, $39 million. We have probably over the past two, three quarters generated over 40%. We are at a 44% gross margin this quarter. If you look at just my performance since the inception, you can really see through my gross margin the economies of scale. As we turned on more rooms, as we grew our operation, you can see my gross margin getting better and better and better.
There was a period in time, I think it was last year, because we are doing everything ourselves, every little dial that we are changing in the grow, we can improve my gross margin, right? Currently, my plants on average yield about 80 g per plant. As we improve our garden, improve the yield, we can get 95 g per plant, 100 g, 120 g per plant. That has a significant impact on my cost of goods sold. Back when we are learning, sometimes we are doing a dial where the R&D says, yeah, it is going to increase our yield, and then we go commercial, or we try commercially, and we actually get a decrease in yield. That happened last year, but we learned from it. You could see a little margin dip. We quickly fixed the garden, reversed it, improved it, and now we are back on track.
Financially, you can see we have a really great profile. We have been EBITDA positive for 17 quarters, cash flow positive since 2022, net income positive since 2021. We are free cash flow, generating significant free cash flow. On average, it is about $5 million- $6 million a quarter. We are just reinvesting that into the business. We are reinvesting that into the business, continuing. We have another 50% to go. It is a very simple story. We are focused on Canada. We are not looking international. We are retaking all the cash flows that we have been generating right now, reinvesting to turn on more growth space and more distribution.
Okay, let's open it up to any questions.
As you go from the 12 to the 24 rooms, are you going to look internationally, or do you think that you can do that much volume in Canada?
The goal will always be to focus on Canada. International will be, if I can get to the 100,000 kg, you know, we might look at an international opportunity to help, maybe 5% or 10% of the business. It's not going to be more than that. We're at 13% market share in Quebec with vapes just coming, and that's just going to scale. Every time they have product calls, we launch new products, and we just see our products keep layering onto our revenues. It's not like we're losing products for new products. Quebec is a very good market for us that we just see continued growth. If I look at outside of Quebec, I'm only at 2.9% market share when I'm the seventh largest player, right? I still have a lot of players above me that I feel we have a better value proposition.
It's just navigating the distribution channels and getting our product onto the shelf. We're going to do it in a slow and steady approach to gain that shelf space.
Talking to people at the weed store, it sounds like at least in Ontario, Tribal's been around for a while, whereas Nugz is a relatively new product. Oh no, no.
It's just that we invested in Tribal and we came with meat genetics and put the innovation. I started putting innovation into Nugz. Now Nugz is starting to, but Nugz was launched at the same time as Tribal.
Okay. My question was, when I talked to people at the weed store, they were saying that for the most part, people are aware that it's the same parent company. Are you seeing, obviously the goal would be to grow your market share overall, are you seeing people just move between products, like between your own products, or are you actually growing market share by having those two different brands?
Yeah, we definitely grow market share. It's all about formats, right? In Tribal, we have a very specific formatting policy. We find genetics, they're unique genetics to Tribal, and we put them under 3.5 g pre-rolls, vapes, infused pre-roll, and concentrate. No other format goes into there. Under Nugz, we're a bit more playful. We have genetics that are specific to Nugz, and on a rotational basis, we do large packs, 14 g, 28 g packs on a rotational basis that rotates through all the different genetics that we have. Consumers usually use the rotational to find the product. They save money on finding the rotational product. Once they find the genetic that they like or they add to their roster, they go into Tribal and start buying the 3.5 g, start buying the pre-rolls, the vapes, and whatnot.
Yeah, I noticed your inventory increased to $44 million from a year ago, about $33 million. I want to know how you sell your product through your own store or independent store. If you increase your farming unit from 12- 24, how are you going to sell them?
Yeah, great question. We actually sell to the government. We don't own any stores. The government, SQDC, Quebec government's the client, Ontario's the client, BC, Saskatchewan, it works like that. We're the growers, so we own, we're not just a branded LP where we buy the cannabis and sit on it just to sell it. We actually grow the cannabis. We always have to, there's a cycle to grow. It's not like you can grow it in a month. It takes a four-month process to grow the cannabis. Once you harvest the cannabis, you have about six months to eight months to sell. This quarter and going into Q3, we're always expecting to grow. We need a healthy balance. If you look at our cost of goods sold, we're about $16 million, $15.5 million, $16 million of cannabis sales.
In that $44 million, I have about probably $5 million of raw material and accessories. When you backtrack that out, I have about six months of inventory on a run rate. That's the high end I want to be on. We control the whole vertical, right? We're going to be able to turn on rooms. We're watching our inventory number. The vape is a huge project and it requires a lot of cannabis. We're building our inventory for that. That's going to start depleting. We're going to increase our distribution. Once we see that inventory number go back to where we want, like between the sweet spot that we want to see it, we're going to open another room and another room and another room. We're able to control the growth. We're not going to open a room if we can't sell it.
Worst case, we're going to sell us, be at $6 million free cash flow. I'm confident with the product and everything that we're doing that we're going to be able to grow in lockstep with demand. That's important for us. We're not going to grow if we don't have the demand. We're going to be able to create the demand.
I'm sorry, that's all the time we have, but please come see Nick after if you have more questions. Thank you very much.