The Washington Athletic Club is hosting pioneering pot entrepreneurs pitching their products to an angel-investor network, the ArcView Group, based in San Francisco, reports the Seattle Times. Josh Gordon, 26, is coming from New York to seek up to $500,000 for his packaging company, RODAWG. Chris Walker, 40, will be pitching for a Swedish company that makes cutting-edge lights for cultivating plants. Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn will greet and take questions from another group, the National Cannabis Industry Association, based in Washington, D.C.
“The world changed 10 weeks ago,” said ArcView CEO Troy Dayton, referring to Colorado and Washington voters’ approving legal marijuana for adults. Merchants who dealt in the underground are meeting on Main Street. Investors who had sunk money in software are now eyeing weed-related ventures and what might be the start of a multibillion-dollar industry. “Seattle along with Denver has become Ground Zero for an emerging industry,” Dayton said. “So it's only fitting we hold our quarterly investors' meeting at Ground Zero.”