Great piece by dot.la on the rapid rise and equally quick descent of LA based Genius Fund, an $164M Cannabis Startup
Their Russian investor was dead.
On a late Tuesday night in early May, the billionaire Russian coal tycoon, Dmitry “Dima” Bosov stopped answering phone calls and messages. When his wife, Katerina, arrived at their mansion in the suburbs of Moscow, she found her 52-year old husband locked in the family’s home gym, dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the head.
The owner of multiple Russian coal companies had a penchant for ice hockey, snowboarding and placing big bets on businesses. More than 6,000 miles to the west, Bosov had been trying to build a new foothold in cannabis.
The Genius Fund was run by Ari Stiegler and Gabriel Borden, two twenty-something friends who had lofty ambitions of dominating the cannabis market first in the U.S. and then internationally, with a roughly $164 million bet from Bosov.
A screenshot of Genius Fund’s website from August 2018 shows the company’s leadership team. Top left to bottom right: Ari Stiegler, Gabriel Borden, Danny Abyzov, Andrew Dillard, Andrey Pirumov, Daniel Sarpa and Chris Clifford. (SOURCE dot.LA)
Their idea was to create a vertically integrated company that owns its own supply chain, producing, distributing and selling cannabis products more efficiently. It’s a model that has proven particularly effective for other cannabis companies like MedMen, Caliva and Natura, which have raised millions in investor funding.
Genius Fund, however, blew the money in less than two years. Company executives ran up five-figure tabs, built lavish offices and manufacturing facilities, and hired armed security in their pursuit to build a cannabis empire, an investigation by dot.LA found. In the end, the Russian-funded venture crumbled.
Read how it all happened at
https://dot-la.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/dot.la/amp/genius-fund-collapse-2646865907
