Author, speaker and Internet personality Gary Vaynerchuk may have talked himself right into acquiring a 50% stake in a cannabis-focused marketing and branding firm, Green Street.
Per L.A. Times
Green Street, an L.A.-based marketing and branding agency focusing on the cannabis space, has sold a 50% stake in its burgeoning business to high-profile investor Gary Vaynerchuk, the company announced Tuesday.
Founded by Rama Mayo and Joshua Shelton in late 2012, Green Street has helped celebrity clients including 2 Chainz, the Game and Broken Lizard (the comedy team behind the “Super Troopers” films) forge weed-related partnerships. In the last two years, the agency has also created a first-of-its-kind cannabis brand showroom in the penthouse of Miracle Mile’s historic Art Deco Wilshire Tower building and recruited a cadre of other like-minded brands to join them in a cannabis-business incubator environment.
(With that building in the process of being sold, Green Street is cloning its concept in a seven-story building under development in downtown L.A.)
Vaynerchuk is an investor who has earned a reputation for his savvy start-up investments (the list of companies he’s backed in their early days include household names such as Twitter, Facebook, Venmo, Resy and Uber). He’s also the brains behind the wine e-commerce platform Wine Library and chief executive of digital agency VaynerMedia.
Tuesday’s announcement did not specify the terms of the investment beyond noting it was a 50% stake, that the agreement was reached “earlier this year” and self-evaluating Green Street at “$28 million pre-money.”
Gary Vee as the world knows him is one of the most inspirational voices around right now. Checkout a clip below where Gary Vee speaks with one of Hip-Hop’s more inspirational minds, Nipsey Hussle.