Cepton Inc. (NASDAQ: CPTN)

The QualityStocks Daily Newsletter would like to spotlight Cepton Inc. (NASDAQ: CPTN).

• Cepton, Inc formally listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market on February 11, 2022, following the merger between Cepton Technologies Inc., and SPAC, Growth Capital Acquisition Corp (GCAC)
• Cepton’s CEO, Dr. Jun Pei rang the Nasdaq opening bell on Thursday, February 17, alongside CTO Dr. Mark McCord and members of both, Cepton Technologies and Growth Capital Acquisition Corp
• GCAC and Cepton arrived at a formal combination agreement on August 5, 2021, with the transaction valuing Cepton at an enterprise value of $1.5 billion

Cepton (NASDAQ: CPTN), a Silicon Valley innovator and leader in high-performance MMR(R) lidar solutions, held the opening bell ringing ceremony at Nasdaq on Thursday, February 17, 2022, after formally commencing trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market on February 11, 2022. In recognition and celebration of this important milestone, Cepton CEO and Co-Founder, Dr. Jun Pei along with CTO and Co-founder Dr. Mark McCord rang the exchange’s opening bell alongside the company’s SPAC partners, Growth Capital Acquisition Corp.’s George Syllantavos and Akis Tsirigakis. The four individuals were also joined by several Cepton team members, as well as representatives from strategic partners, investors, and advisors to mark the momentous occasion (https://ibn.fm/TRjUh).

Cepton Inc. (NASDAQ: CPTN) is a provider of state-of-the-art, intelligent, lidar-based solutions serving a range of markets, including automotive (ADAS/AV), smart cities, smart spaces and smart industrial applications. General Motors (NYSE:GM) has granted a series production award for Cepton’s lidar, the biggest such award to date in the automotive space. Cepton’s is the lidar component of GM’s Ultra Cruise autonomous driving platform. By leveraging its patented Micro Motion Technology (MMT®) lidar platform, the company develops reliable, scalable and cost-effective solutions that deliver long-range, high-resolution 3D perception for smart applications.

Cepton was established in 2016 by co-founders Dr. Jun Pei and Dr. Mark McCord. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, and serves a fast-growing customer base through an international presence spanning North America, Germany, Japan, India and China.

Micro Motion Technology (MMT®)

Cepton was built from the ground up to meet key lidar industry challenges for mass market adoption. This company’s portfolio of proprietary technology is uniquely aimed at facilitating this industry growth through a combination of performance, reliability, affordability and design integration.

Key among its innovations is MMT®, a mirrorless, frictionless, rotation-free 3D imaging platform designed specifically for lidars. Its benefits for OEMs and system integrators include:

• Reliability – The durable design uses common, easily attainable materials.
• Versatility – The platform is capable of achieving near- to ultra-long range with a wide field of view.
• Efficiency – MMT® features a compact form factor, low power usage and inexpensive components.
• Scalability – Its simple design means that scale-up to high manufacturing volumes is easily attainable.

Because of their compact form factor, Cepton lidars are embeddable and ideally suited for advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) integration, whether behind windshield, in headlamp or in fascia.

Agreement with KOITO

KOITO Manufacturing Co. Ltd., the world’s premier Tier 1 auto lighting supplier, originally started an evaluation of Cepton’s MMT® based lidars in 2018. In 2020, KOITO made an investment in Cepton aimed at accelerating the company’s development and enabling KOITO’s industrialization of high-performance and high reliability lidar sensors for ADAS and autonomous vehicle (AV) applications.

Through this collaboration, Cepton was able to secure the largest ADAS lidar series production award[1] with General Motors as a sole source in the automotive space. The award covers GM vehicles for the initial period of 2023-2027.

On August 5, 2021, the two companies deepened their relationship when KOITO committed to invest a further $50 million in Cepton’s business through its participation in a Private Investment in Public Equity (PIPE) offering of shares of common stock of Growth Capital Acquisition Corp. in connection with Cepton’s recent merger.

Collaboration with GM

On July 13, 2021, Cepton announced that it had secured an ADAS lidar series production award from a leading, Detroit-based global automotive OEM – the biggest lidar production award by any OEM to any lidar company. It was later clarified that the OEM was General Motors, and Cepton’s lidar is part of GM’s ADAS Ultra Cruise system.

GM is “expected to deploy Cepton lidars in its next generation of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) across multiple vehicle classes and models – not just luxury cars.” As such, the agreement marks the potential for “an industry-first, mass-market adoption of lidar technology for automotive ADAS, with an anticipated deployment in consumer vehicles starting in 2023.”

On July 28, 2021, Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) distributed an article on Medium noting, “Ford has been engaged with Cepton almost since their inception in 2016, both for R&D collaboration and small-scale deployments. Cepton LiDAR are deployed in some of [Ford’s] smart city projects. Based on Ford’s guidance, Cepton delivered a custom version of their LiDAR to enable R&D on advanced ADAS features.”

Market Outlook

Driven by increasing development and adoption in automobile safety applications, environmental mapping and 3D-modeling, the global lidar market is forecast to experience considerable growth over the coming years. A research report published by MarketsAndMarkets suggests that the sector will grow to an estimated $3.4 billion by 2026, achieving a CAGR of 21.6% over the next five years.

The report further highlights increasing investments in lidar startups by automotive giants as a driver of growth opportunities in the sector, particularly in North America.

In 2020, ground-based lidar accounted for the lion’s share of the overall lidar market, and this trend is expected to continue as the automotive sector continues to rapidly advance adoption across the full spectrum of vehicle classes. One factor not to be underestimated is the high barrier of entry and the exceptionally long time required for automotive OEMs to vet and award a production win to a lidar company. It is a commonly held view that the over 50 lidar companies will inevitably coalesce into a handful serving all OEMs.

Cepton, having a head start through its established partnership with leading global OEM GM, is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this market growth in the years to come.

Management Team

Cepton’s founder-led team is made up of lidar industry pioneers with decades of collective experience across advanced lidar and imaging technologies.

Jun Pei, Ph.D., is the company’s CEO and Co-Founder. He is a technology specialist with a focus in optics and electronics. Prior to founding Cepton, Dr. Pei founded AEP Technology, a firm focused on developing advanced 3D optical instruments. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Mark McCord, Ph.D., is Cepton’s CTO and Co-Founder. Prior to founding Cepton, he led advanced development at KLA-Tencor. Dr. McCord also formerly served as an associate professor at Stanford University, where he earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering.

Winston Fu, Ph.D., is the company’s CFO. Dr. Fu is the founder of Silicon Valley venture capital firm LDV Partners. Prior to joining Cepton, he served as CFO and Chairman of Active-Semi before its acquisition. Dr. Fu has also helped to build many technology companies as an entrepreneur and/or board member. He received his Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University, as well as an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

[1] Largest known ADAS lidar series production award based on number of vehicle models awarded

Cepton Inc. (NASDAQ: CPTN), closed Monday's trading session at $9.05, up 10.2314%, on 480,377 volume. The average volume for the last 3 months is 479,394 and the stock's 52-week low/high is $6.85/$80.16.

Recent News

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Mullen Automotive Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN)

The QualityStocks Daily Newsletter would like to spotlight Mullen Automotive Inc. (MULN).

California is pushing for electric vehicle (“EV”) adoption as it plans to transition from depending on fossil fuels. Last week, officials from Governor Gavin Newsom’s office (D-CA) and the California Environmental Protection Agency announced that the one-millionth electric vehicle had been purchased within the state. During the press conference, they announced that the state would have more zero-emission vehicles (“ZEV”) running in comparison to several states combined. This is part of the governor’s plan that he announced in 2020; the plan states that by 2035 ZEV will make up all car and passenger trucks sold within the state. The state makes one-half of the country’s exports of electric vehicles. He hopes that with the state eliminating its dependency on oil, it will provide the world with a “blueprint” on combating climate change and growing its clean energy economy. California has opted to be proactive on matters of encouraging residents to switch to EVs, and this leadership at the top is creating an enabling environment for manufacturers such as Mullen Automotive Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN) to thrive and make decent sales in this nascent industry.

Mullen Automotive Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN) is a Southern California-based automotive company that owns and partners with several synergistic businesses working toward the unified goal of creating clean and scalable energy solutions. Mullen has evolved over the past decade in sync with consumers and technology trends. Today, the company is working diligently to provide exciting EV options built entirely in the United States and made to fit perfectly into the American consumer’s life. Mullen strives to make EVs more accessible than ever by building an end-to-end ecosystem that takes care of all aspects of EV ownership.

Commencement of Trading on Nasdaq

On November 5, 2021, Mullen announced its commencement of trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market.

“Today is a monumental day for Mullen Automotive. I am especially proud of our team, investors and all who have believed in Mullen and taken us to this point as a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq Capital Market,” David Michery, CEO and Chairman of Mullen Automotive, stated in the news release. “Trading on Nasdaq now opens us up to new investors, both institutional and retail shareholders, and broadens our awareness and company profile, while increasing awareness of Mullen and our technology platform and opening new opportunities in EV and beyond. The road ahead has never been brighter for Mullen, and I am proud to lead us into the future.”

The milestone came in the wake of the company’s stock-for-stock merger with Net Element Inc.

The Mullen FIVE

The Mullen FIVE EV Crossover, debuting at the Los Angeles International Auto Show (LAIAS) on November 17, 2021, embodies Mullen’s Southern California roots with an inspired design focused on two complementary Golden State themes – California landscape and California urban.

The FIVE is built on an EV Crossover skateboard platform that offers multiple powertrain configurations and trim levels in a svelte design that is Strikingly Different™ and exciting to experience in person.

Prior to the start of LAIAS, the Mullen FIVE was selected as a finalist by the LA Auto Show for Top EV SUV in the ZEVA “People’s Choice” Awards.

LAIAS provides Mullen an opportunity to display multiple variants of the FIVE model while also showcasing its powertrain, battery and charging technology. The company intends to bring the FIVE to market in 2024, and reservations are currently open here.

Mullen’s development portfolio also includes EV Fleet Vans, which it intends to bring to market in Q2 2022, and the pure electric, high performance Mullen DragonFLY.

Expansion of Manufacturing Capacity

On November 2, 2021, Mullen announced plans to expand its facility in Robinsonville, Mississippi.

Mullen’s Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering Facility (AMEC) currently occupies 124,000 square feet of manufacturing space. The total available land on the property is over 100 acres, and Mullen is moving ahead with plans to build out another 1.2 million square feet of manufacturing space to support class 1 and class 2 EV cargo vans and the Mullen FIVE EV Crossover.

On the expanded site, Mullen plans to build a body shop, a fully automated paint shop and a general assembly shop.

EV Market Outlook

The global EV market was reported to consist of 3,269,671 units in 2019, a figure that is expected to grow at a CAGR of 21.1% through 2030 to a total of 26,951,318 units worldwide. This market’s monetary value was estimated at $162.34 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 22.6%, resulting in an approximate value of $802.81 billion by 2027. The primary driver for this exponential growth is a worldwide increase in vehicle emissions regulations.

Management Team

David Michery is the CEO and Founder of Mullen and has been leading the company and its divisions since inception in 2014. With over 25 years of executive management, marketing, distressed assets, and business restructuring experience, Mr. Michery brings a wealth of relevant knowledge and expertise to the Mullen brand. He has notably created 12 trademarks so far to develop the company brand and vision.

Mr. Michery is working toward a sustainable future accessible to all by creating a suite of clean-energy electric vehicles at varied price points. With entirely U.S.-based manufacturing and operations, he is also determined to have Mullen Technologies play a role in shaping a self-sustaining local economy by creating more jobs in America.

Mr. Michery manages risks and company expectations as a pathway to success and has personally overseen several businesses that totaled over $1 billion in transactions. His key strength is the ability to be fiscally responsible and lead teams to complete projects on time and within budget. As a seasoned professional in this space, Mr. Michery has demonstrated skill in building businesses from the ground up and into successful entities that subsequently sold for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mullen Automotive Inc. (MULN), closed Monday's trading session at $1.06, up 34.9287%, on 257,913,019 volume. The average volume for the last 3 months is 252.466M and the stock's 52-week low/high is $0.52/$15.90.

Recent News

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StraightUp Resources Inc. (CSE: ST) (OTCQB: STUPF)

The QualityStocks Daily Newsletter would like to spotlight StraightUp Resources Inc. (CSE: ST) (OTCQB: STUPF).

StraightUp Resources (CSE: ST) (OTCQB: STUPF), a public company engaged in the business of mineral exploration and the acquisition of mineral property assets in North America, has entered into a purchase option agreement with 1544230 Ontario Inc. The agreement, entered into on behalf of Perry English and Gravel Ridge Resources Ltd., gives StraightUp Resources the exclusive right and option to acquire an undivided interest in the Ranger/Otter mining project, which is located in Red Lake, Ontario. According to the announcement, the agreement is subject to a 1.5% net smelter returns royalty. The agreement also notes that StraightUp Resources has the right to buy back one-third of the NSR as well as rights of first refusal with respect to any sale of the NRS. The Ranger/Otter project includes three claims comprised of 61 cells and encompassing 3,050 acres. “We are pleased to further our position in Ontario's Red Lake Mining District, especially now, given the rapid acceleration of exploration activity and large cap miners interest in the region,” said StraightUp Resources president and director Mark Brezer in the press release. “These new claims expand our flagship RLX Project, surrounding the Great Bear Resources Sobel Project, by over 10 percent.” To view the full press release, visit https://ibn.fm/fAxVv. The price of gold has increased significantly after Russian forces breached Ukraine last week. This is the metal’s highest price since 2020. This attack is affecting investor risk sentiment across the international markets and has triggered the worst security crisis in the European Union since the Second World War. The decision to attack Ukraine provoked investor flight to safe haven assets, with spot gold prices rising by almost 1% to reach $1,925.08 per ounce, an almost 15-month high. U.S. gold futures on the Comex also gained 1% to hit $1,930 per ounce. Before that correction occurs, precious metals companies such as StraightUp Resources Inc. (CSE: ST) (OTCQB: STUPF) are likely to enjoy higher revenues from the hike in the price of the safe haven commodity.

StraightUp Resources Inc. (CSE: ST) (OTCQB: STUPF) is a public company engaged in the business of mineral exploration and the acquisition of mineral property assets in North America. The company’s flagship properties are located in the Red Lake Mining District of Ontario, Canada, renowned for over 30 million ounces of historic gold production. Other key projects extend into the neighboring Meen-Dempster Greenstone Belt of the Uchi Subprovince. The company’s management team is led by dedicated professionals, aiming to maximize shareholder value while employing modern exploration techniques and principles to achieve its goals.

The mission of StraightUp Resources is to maximize shareholder wealth through mineral discoveries at projects with robust potential, maintain long-lasting partnerships, and continue to focus on the acquisition, development and exploration of mineral resource properties in North America. The company’s objective is to continue to locate and develop economic, precious and base metal properties of merit.

The company’s 10,000-hectare (almost 25,000 acres) RLX Projects are contiguous to various Evolution Mining, Great Bear Resources, Pacton Gold and Dixie Gold properties. Its 2,000-hectare (just under 5,000 acres) Belanger Project is contiguous to Infinite Ore’s Fredart and Garnet/Arrow properties. StraightUp intends to conduct exploration on the RLX North, RLX South, Belanger and Ferdinand Gold properties located in the Red Lake District, a location touted as having one of the best metal-endowed greenstone belts in the world. The Bear Head Gold Project is located within the Meen-Dempster Greenstone Belt of the Uchi Subprovince, approximately 80 kilometers west of the Pickle Lake Gold Camp and 14 km northeast of the former gold mine, Golden Patricia. It amassed 620,000 ounces of gold at an average of 15.2 g/t Au from 1988-1997. The property is bordered by an Australian miner massive gold project. Known gold occurrences are already mapped on the Bear Head property, as are previous drill holes and results. Once the data is re-examined, an exploration budget and subsequent plans will be announced by the company.

Projects

Ontario’s Red Lake Mining District is one of Canada’s most prolific gold mining districts, renowned for its high-grade gold deposits. This is a mining-friendly, politically stable jurisdiction with a skilled labor force and infrastructure specifically built around meeting the needs of the mining industry.

RLX North & South Projects
At over 10,000 hectares, the RLX North and RLX South Projects represent a district-scale exploration opportunity. The RLX North and RLX South Projects are well positioned on-strike to the southeast of the district’s largest gold deposit (Red Lake Gold Mines – Evolution Mining). The project is adjacent to Great Bear Resources’ Sobel Project. Great Bear Resources is also in the process of evaluating the area for significant regional-scale structural controls and has proposed additional work on its neighboring project in the near term. These properties are highly accessible, with the southern boundary only eight kilometers from the paved highway into Red Lake, and can be accessed by forest service roads which traverse throughout the properties.

Belanger Project
Historic exploration work on the 2,000-hectare property has identified three significant surface exposures of gold, copper and silver. Early exploration work will focus on validating historic sampling results and following the occurrences along strike with a view to better understanding the nature and controls on mineralization. The property has excellent forest road access from the town of Ear Falls.

Ferdinand Gold Project
The Ferdinand property is situated within the southeastern extension of the Confederation-Uchi greenstone belt, one of the most metal-endowed greenstone belts in the world by square kilometer. It consists of 17 contiguous mining claims covering approximately 7,143 hectares (17,650 acres), located 13 kilometers northwest of the town of Slate Falls. Access is currently by logging roads, with forestry logging operations scheduled for expansion on the property. StraightUp recently completed a heliborne magnetic survey consisting of 1,994 line-km at 50m line spacings covering the entire property. The MAG survey was designed to provide geological and structural details of a 25km long southeast extension of the Confederation-Uchi greenstone belt along the Fry-Bamaji Deformation Zone.

Bear Head Gold Project
The Bear Head Gold Project comprises 31 mining claims totaling 1,944 hectares (4,800 acres) in the Meen-Dempster Greenstone Belt of the Uchi Subprovince, host to the Golden Patricia former gold mine, which produced 620,000 ounces of gold from 1988 to 1997. The Dorothy Main gold deposit owned by Ardiden lies only one kilometer from the Bear Head Gold Project. The Dorothy Main gold deposit holds noncompliant historical resources of 46,600 ounces of gold at 6.17 g/t Au. The company looks forward to adding the Bear Head Gold Project to its exploration efforts, with a work program to be conducted later in the fall of 2021.

Management Team

Mark Brezer is CEO, President, and Director of StraightUp Resources Inc. He is a successful businessman and holds a Geography/Geology degree from the University of Arizona. He has worked as a Project Manager and has overseen quality control, environmental monitoring and safety programs related to road construction. He has also held roles in media relations and marketing. He has been actively involved in the research and investment of junior mining companies for over 25 years. Time in the field and personal interest led him into extensive first aid training, and he is certified as a paramedic and firefighter.

Daniel Cruz is CFO and Director at StraightUp Resources. He is an experienced financial industry professional, having worked for 12 years as a senior investment advisor at Canadian broker-dealers, where he gained experience in equity research, asset management, investor relations, corporate finance and venture capital. He was one of the youngest Senior Investment Advisors at Canaccord Financial Inc. in 2010. He is also the co-founder and current director of Liquid Media Group Inc., a Nasdaq-listed issuer. During his tenure as CFO, he helped that company list on Nasdaq and raise over $20 million.

Matthew Coltura is a Director at StraightUp Resources. He has a Bachelor of Business Administration from Okanagan College, where he specialized in finance. He has worked in the finance industry for more than three years. Currently, Mr. Coltura is the CFO of Cayenne Capital Corp. He was also a director of PreveCeutical Medical Inc. from July 2016 to September 2019, a director of Sproutly Canada Inc. (formerly Stoneridge Exploration Corp.) from March 2015 to July 2018, and, since March 2018, has worked as a financial specialist at Quip Finance.

StraightUp Resources Inc. (OTCQB: STUPF), closed Monday's trading session at $0.1075, even for the day, on  volume. The average volume for the last 3 months is 4,000 and the stock's 52-week low/high is $0.10676/$0.26.

Recent News

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EverGen Infrastructure Corp. (TSX.V: EVGN) (OTCQB: EVGIF)

The QualityStocks Daily Newsletter would like to spotlight EverGen Infrastructure Corp. (TSX.V: EVGN) (OTCQB: EVGIF).

• EverGen forecasts EBITDA growth from about C$3 million in 2021 to more than C$12 million in the next 12 months from expansion of core operating assets
• EverGen stock began trading in the U.S. on the OTCQB Venture Market under ticker symbol ‘EVGIF’ on February 15, 2022
• EverGen has low-risk long term contracted or reoccurring revenue (similar to Large Cap Independent Power Producers), with two revenue sources via RNG sales and organic waste tip-fee contracts providing a high margin business with EBITDA margins of 50-60%
• In its most recent reporting, the company reported gross profit of C$1.58 million on revenue of C$1.95 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2021

EverGen Infrastructure (TSX.V: EVGN) (OTCQB: EVGIF) is developing Canada’s Renewable Natural Gas Infrastructure Platform, starting on the west coast in British Columbia. The company is combating climate change and helping communities contribute to a sustainable future by acquiring, developing, building, owning and operating a portfolio of renewable natural gas (“RNG”), waste-to-energy, and related infrastructure projects.

EverGen Infrastructure Corp. (TSX.V: EVGN) (OTCQB: EVGIF) is developing Canada’s Renewable Natural Gas Infrastructure Platform, starting on the west coast in British Columbia. The company is combating climate change and helping communities contribute to a sustainable future by acquiring, developing, building, owning and operating a portfolio of renewable natural gas (RNG), waste-to-energy, and related infrastructure projects.

While EverGen is currently focused on British Columbia, its continued growth is expected across other regions of North America. RNG is produced differently than conventional natural gas, without drilling wells. RNG is derived from biogas, which is captured from decomposing organic waste in landfills, food waste, agricultural waste matter and wastewater from treatment facilities. This waste feedstock is supplied to an anaerobic digester which contains bacteria that breaks down organic matter in the absence of oxygen. The resulting biogas is captured and cleaned to create carbon neutral or carbon negative RNG to be used by the existing North American gas pipeline grid. By capturing these emissions and transforming them into RNG, then combusting into CO2, the overall greenhouse gases (GHG) impact is materially less potent than allowing natural decomposition to release methane into the atmosphere. Liquid and solid digestate matter is a byproduct of the RNG production process and is used as fertilizer and in other applications.

EverGen operates three projects in British Columbia. The company was incorporated in 2020 and went public in 2021, with its common shares listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under ticker symbol ‘EVGN’. In February 2022, EverGen’s common shares began trading on the OTCQB Venture Market in the U.S. under ticker symbol ‘EVGIF’. The company is headquartered in Vancouver.

Portfolio Projects

Fraser Valley Biogas is one of three projects in EverGen’s portfolio. Located in Abbotsford, British Columbia, the facility has been digesting manure and off-farm organics since 2011 and was the first agricultural digester in Canada to produce RNG. The RNG generated through this project is part of a FortisBC program to supply renewable gas to homes, businesses and other customers. Fraser Valley Biogas also provides Abbotsford farms with renewable fertilizer via the digestate produced. EverGen acquired Fraser Valley Biogas early in 2021 and is currently enhancing and expanding the facility. These optimization projects resulted in record production during the month of September 2021, supporting the growing demand for RNG in British Columbia. Optimization activities contributed an additional 18% of RNG production for September and a 9% higher year-to-date production compared to the previous year. The facility produces approximately 80,000 gigajoules of RNG, enough to heat more than 1,000 homes for a year.

Net Zero Waste Abbotsford, a wholly owned EverGen subsidiary and portfolio project, is an existing composting and organic processing facility and RNG expansion project. The British Columbia Utilities Commission recently approved a 20-year offtake agreement between the facility and FortisBC, an electricity and gas utility. Under this agreement, FortisBC will purchase up to 173,000 gigajoules of RNG annually for injection into its natural gas system upon completion of an anaerobic digester project at Net Zero Waste Abbotsford. Once construction is complete, this project is expected to produce enough energy to meet the needs of more than 1,900 homes.

Sea to Sky Soils, a wholly owned EverGen subsidiary and portfolio project, is an existing composting and organic processing facility and potential future RNG expansion project which has been operating near Pemberton, British Columbia, on Lil’wat Nation land since 2012. The Lil’wat Nation is a key partner and supporter of the facility, which has employed a majority of its staff from the First Nation since inception. The Sea to Sky Soils facility processed approximately 160 percent of its forecast tonnage in the second half of 2021. In total, Sea to Sky Soils processed approximately 36,000 tons of organic waste in 2021. The facility is working with the Ministry of Environment to expand its operational capacity in 2022. EverGen has partnered with local municipalities – including Metro Vancouver and the municipality of Pemberton – for the delivery of additional organic waste to the facility. The facility is an important part of EverGen’s RNG infrastructure platform and serves as a source of valuable feedstock to support the company’s existing and future operations.

Market Outlook

A report from Global Market Insights states that the biogas market is projected to see significant growth over the next few years, driven by a shifting preference to utilize biogas to reduce emission levels from traditional fuels. Escalating RNG usage by gas utilities as a sustainable and low carbon alternative to supply heat and electricity in industries and buildings will further stimulate growth. RNG is increasingly deployed across the transport sector, especially for heavy vehicles and vessels, to abate GHG emissions.

Many North American gas utilities have set RNG targets of 5% to 15% of production by volume in 2030, compared to less than 1% by volume in 2020. FortisBC has a goal of including 15% RNG in its gas supply by 2030. EverGen believes this presents a potential C$16 billion+ opportunity for RNG producers.

Management Team

Chase Edgelow is co-founder and CEO at EverGen. He has over 15 years of specialized private investment, finance, and technical expertise in the energy and infrastructure sectors. His background is as a Facilities Engineer with Petro-Canada, independently managing energy infrastructure capital projects located in western Canada. He holds a Professional Engineer designation from the province of Alberta.

Mischa Zajtmann is co-founder and President at Evergen. He has 15 years of experience providing consulting and management for Canadian and American companies in the natural resources and energy space. He is a corporate securities lawyer who began his career at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP. His J.D. is from the University of Saskatchewan Law School. He’s a member of the British Columbia Bar.

Sean Mezei is COO at EverGen. He has 20 years of experience in the RNG industry, having served previously as the president of Greenlane Biogas and as a senior manager at QuestAir, and founder and president of Dekany Consulting. He was a co-chairman of the American Biogas Council’s RNG working group for six years. He has been a Registered Professional Engineer in the province of British Columbia since 1994.

Natasha Monk is CFO at EverGen. She is a CPA with 12 years accounting, financial reporting, and tax experience in public practice and industry. She is currently a partner at Affirm LLP, where she advises and consults to a wide variety of companies in multiple industries across public and private sectors. Prior to joining EverGen, she worked at KPMG. She graduated from the University of Calgary.

EverGen Infrastructure Corp. (OTCQB: EVGIF), closed Monday's trading session at $3.12, even for the day, on  volume. The average volume for the last 3 months is 300 and the stock's 52-week low/high is $2.78/$4.21.

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Nowigence Inc.

The QualityStocks Daily Newsletter would like to spotlight Nowigence Inc.

Nowigence developed Pluaris(TM), an off-the-shelf, cloud-based artificial intelligence (“AI”) platform that automates reading and analysis of textual data. The platform’s development was fueled by the recognition that reading is the basis of obtaining knowledge, and that people’s ability to learn and make decisions is limited to the ability to recall. This is especially important as the challenge of remembering what has been read has become more difficult with the advent of the digital world. As a review paper by Ziming Liu, a professor of information science at San Jose State University who studies reading behavior, noted, we tend to default to skimming over more careful reading when we read digital text as opposed to words on paper. Nowigence has made this struggle infinitely less difficult with the introduction of Pluaris. A recent article explains: “Using Pluaris, readers don’t have to wade through all the information themselves, relying on their flawed human recall to remember everything. Instead, they can scan their news feed for key information, view analyzed content for unbiased importance ranking, and identify what’s worth drilling down further, reducing the sheer volume of reading material and increasing resources designed to strengthen and support memory.” To view the full article, visit https://ibn.fm/d02sw

Nowigence Inc. is a fast-growing SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) company that develops and sells a ready-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) platform called Pluaris™ that automates reading and analysis of textual data. Individuals, teams, and enterprises can now quickly distill knowledge buried in narrative-intensive documents instantaneously from various data sources, both public and private.

Pluaris is created for those who want to read more in less time. It is a Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) tool that generates an annotated data feed based on your topics of interest and automatically creates a permanent personal knowledge base from your feed and private uploads. It has human-like capabilities for comprehending textual data. It summarizes, provides precise answers to questions asked, analyzes different data perspectives, discovers new connections, creates organized nested notes, and allows teams to work collaboratively by sharing in real-time from anywhere in the world to draw informed conclusions.

By integrating state-of-the-art data processing techniques in an intuitive interface at an affordable subscription price, Nowigence puts the power of data science in the hands of consumers. It helps individuals, teams, and organizations to quickly build expertise on one or multiple topics by generating a trove of critical information.

Nowigence targets two user types that rely heavily on fast and accurate research as primary adopters of the Pluaris platform. The first is knowledge workers of all kinds – anyone whose job is to “think for a living” like marketing professionals, researchers, legal professionals, academics, journalists, editors, scientists, and other professionals. The second are individual users who are life-long learners, hobbyists, and enthusiasts of all stripes.

Rather than spending time reading information to gain knowledge from one source at a time, users of Pluaris can gain knowledge from hundreds or thousands of sources in seconds. Keyword-based search-and-retrieval applications don’t open documents, nor read their content, nor extract key points, conduct cause and effect analysis or answer questions specifically. Pluaris includes all those features and goes one step further, with its semantic capabilities to empower users with interpretations of retrieved information. Nowigence estimates this feature alone can save typical researchers between one and three hours per workday. The platform also reduces “noise” by extracting only important and relevant information on every topic being monitored or researched. This helps cut down on information overload, a major source of workplace stress.

Pluaris Builds Intelligence

The Problem

In the modern world, virtually everyone needs to consume a tremendous amount of text-based information, in both our personal and professional lives, but doing so is exceptionally challenging because of:

• Information Overload: For virtually any significant topic of interest, the amount of textual information available and continually generated is vastly more than can be consumed by an individual.
• Pervasive Distractions: Thanks to modern technology, we are constantly bombarded with new inputs (e-mails, instant messages, social media, and more) reducing our attention span, leading all too often to TL;DR (Too Long, Didn’t Read).
• Highly Imperfect Human Recall: The information that we do find time to read is easily forgotten. Even if we retain some of the key insights, the details are almost certainly lost.

Even when working in teams, we often end up researching the same content as our colleagues, and too much of the information acquired by one individual is lost in translation with the communication process to others.

Pluaris

Nowigence has worked with stalwarts and pioneers in the fields of Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) from its early days. The company was keen to solve the big problem of the information age – too much data exists and cannot be processed manually.

Pluaris is designed to be used by regular people from day one with no need for extensive training. The platform is used across different functions and sectors, adapting to clients’ ever-changing needs. Its state-of-the-art no code editing gives organizations the flexibility to improve and tailor their results without hiring data scientists, and real time information retrieval ensures the client never misses any piece of intelligence.

Pluaris adapts to the unique needs by which individuals absorb knowledge. It doesn’t impose structured or rigid methodology. Real time operation means that Pluaris will deliver outputs instantaneously with a click.

A Nowigence team of experts spent three years training Pluaris to understand the context of every sentence it reads. If Pluaris does make an error in contextual interpretation, the user can correct it, which will instantly give the correction precedence over the ML’s algorithmic outputs. This takes away the biggest criticism against AI/ML platforms, that annotating (labeling) data and developing training datasets to build models takes too much time and effort from internal teams.

Use Cases

I need to stay on top of the latest news for my industry. Pluaris automatically retrieves and analyzes news on your topics of interest every day, so you can quickly scroll through an annotated news feed on your phone, tablet or laptop, while finishing your morning coffee.

Example: A Pluaris enterprise customer was interested in tracking news and events in the telecom industry. Nowigence was able to quickly create and then fine-tune a list of topics to monitor. In less than a week, they had an annotated news feed covering the telecom industry available to their team.

I have to come up to speed on a new topic as quickly as possible. Upload a few related websites and documents to Pluaris and within minutes you are exploring this new area of interest, scanning the summaries, gaining new insights about this topic, and finding new keywords to broaden your search and deepen your understanding.

Example: A customer who was already using Pluaris for business intelligence decided to use his account to make improvements in his health after he received a report from his doctor of a high fasting blood sugar level.

• He uploaded a few research reports to Pluaris, read through the summaries, and explored the annotated labels. Based on that analysis, he set up Pluaris to monitor topics such as “lowering fasting blood sugar” and “low glycemic food.”
• From those results, he built an action list of daily habits for diet and fitness and, within a couple months, brought his fasting blood sugar level back down.

I want to be able to access the information I’ve read in the past and synthesize it with my current understanding. As you continue to add more and more information to the system over time, Pluaris never forgets. You are building a knowledge base of the information that is most relevant to you.

Example: A Pluaris user at one of the world’s largest aluminum mining companies was tasked with preparing talking points for her manager for an upcoming investor meeting. Over time using Pluaris, she had built a database of documents, including transcripts, notes, Q&A sessions, speeches, annual reports, and internal documents, some of which were from previous investor meetings. She was able to quickly explore that database through the Pluaris Dashboard and using various filters. She then pulled this information together in a Pluaris Notebook and shared that note directly with her boss.

Market Outlook

Pluaris users include:

• Knowledge Workers – Gartner estimates there are more than 1 billion worldwide as of December 2019.
• Students in Higher Education: ICEF estimates there are 250 million worldwide as of 2020. This is Nowigence’s initial target group from a market penetration perspective.
• Personal/Home Use: Statista estimates there are 4.7 billion active internet users worldwide as of January 2021.

Nowigence offers tiered pricing, starting at $10/month/user for individuals, while team and enterprise users, who have access to more features to facilitate collaboration and integrations to other enterprise tools, start at $45/month/user.

As a result, the Total Available Market (TAM) is more than a billion users and over $1 trillion. The Market Opportunity (the Serviceable Obtainable Market or SOM) for Nowigence is $11 billion in the combined PKM and Cognitive Computing space defined by Pluaris.

This market is growing rapidly too. The Cognitive Computing market alone was valued at $8.87 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach a value of $87.39 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 31.6% from 2019 to 2026, according to Allied Market Research.

Nowigence offers differentiated value compared to other Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) tools, which have reached as many as 250 million users (Evernote) and have shown rapid adoption (Roam Research reached 60,000 users and $1 million ARR within 6 weeks of launching paid plans). Unlike Pluaris, these tools do not automatically monitor public or private sources to add to your knowledge base, nor do they provide summaries or extract intelligence. Pluaris differs from search engines as well, in that search engines do not access or store personal knowledge, and they also do not summarize or extract intelligence.

Management Team

Anoop Bhatia is the founder and CEO of Nowigence Inc., where he has worked full-time since 2015. Previously, he worked as a global operation strategic transformation leader for Momentive Performance Material (formerly GE Silicones). He has worked for over two decades in various General Electric companies across different countries, including the U.S., India, The Netherlands and Germany. He played a key role in establishing GE Silicones as the first-ever wholly owned foreign subsidiary established in India in 1996. He received his Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering from BITS in India and did his post-graduate studies in management from Heriot-Watt at Edinburgh in Scotland.

Gordon Haupt is the Chief Technology Officer at Nowigence. He has more than 20 years of experience building and leading diverse engineering and operations teams, and a strong technical background in machine learning, signal processing, and statistical data analysis, including applications in speech and text, biotechnology, and computer vision. He is a named inventor on 15 issued patents and is experienced in all phases of engineering development and operations. He holds a B.S. degree in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Wisconsin and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University in Aeronautics and Astronautics.

David Evans is the company’s acting CFO & General Counsel. As an attorney and licensed CPA in the state of New York, he has extensive experience in multistate and international tax policies and guidelines, federal taxation laws, mergers and acquisitions, including valuation of closely held businesses. He is a contributing author to the New York State Tax Service, a six-volume publication of NYS tax laws and regulations. His prior experience includes being a Managing Director for UHY Advisors LLC, a board member and chairperson of the Tax Division Executive Committee of New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants and a past president of the Estate Planning Council of Eastern New York. He holds degrees from Hofstra University and State University of New York at Buffalo.

Recent News

• Nowigence Inc. - InvestorNewsBreaks – Nowigence Inc.’s Pluaris(TM) Overcomes Key Challenge in Growing Digital World
• InvestorNewsBreaks – Nowigence Inc. Engages IBN for Corporate Communications Expertise
• Nowigence Inc., Creator of Pluaris, Overcomes the Challenge of Human Recall

SPYR Inc. (OTCQB: SPYR)

The QualityStocks Daily Newsletter would like to spotlight SPYR Inc. (OTCQB: SPYR).

• SPYR was featured in a recent report highlighting the company’s intention to stake its claim in the burgeoning global Internet of Things market
• The company continues to identify and target acquisitions to potentially grow its footprint in the industry and increase its product offerings, the report notes
• SPYR also announced it had further expanded the airing schedule of its MagixDrive national commercial to help more customers discover the wireless CarPlay device

SPYR (OTCQB: SPYR), dba SPYR Technologies, was featured in a recent Emerging Markets Report published by investor relations consultants Emerging Markets Consulting (“EMC”). Entitled “Home Smart Home.” The report offers a brief overview of SPYR, a technology company that, through its wholly-owned affiliate, Applied Magix, Inc., operates in the Internet of Things (“IoT”) space by developing and reselling Apple(R)-ecosystem-compatible products (https://ibn.fm/6rg9Y).

SPYR Inc. (OTCQB: SPYR), dba SPYR Technologies, is a technology company which, through its Applied MagiX Inc. subsidiary, develops and resells Apple®-ecosystem-compatible products with an emphasis on the growing, multibillion-dollar Internet of Things (IoT) Smart Home and Connected Car markets.

SPYR continues to identify and target acquisitions with an aim of growing its footprint in the industry and expanding the products it offers consumers, including companies developing artificial intelligence and smart-technology products. In 2020, SPYR acquired Applied MagiX Inc., a registered Apple developer and reseller of Apple ecosystem compatible products with an emphasis on the smart home market, as a wholly owned subsidiary. Applied MagiX operates in the IoT market and, more specifically, the segment of the market related to the development, manufacture and sale of devices and accessories specifically built on Apple’s HomeKit® framework. These products work within the Apple HomeKit ecosystem and are exclusive to the Apple market and its consumers.

Initially, while working to develop, manufacture and sell its own line of branded products, Applied MagiX will be sourcing HomeKit products and accessories from worldwide manufacturers, vetting and selecting best-of-breed products, selling them directly to consumers and supporting them. The company focuses on Apple consumers – a target market with higher disposable income and a demonstrated willingness to pay a premium for quality products. On average, Apple product users spend roughly twice as much on technology as other smartphone users. Those who purchase smart home products spend more than $3,000 on average.

By creating smart hardware and software solutions exclusively for Apple consumers, SPYR addresses a problem faced by that market – having few “smart” devices that integrate with Apple’s HomeKit, despite being the most affluent and loyal consumers of tech products.

Products

The company’s Applied MagiX subsidiary offers multiple product lines to its target markets. First, the subsidiary is a reseller of third-party manufactured Apple HomeKit and Apple CarPlay compatible products. HomeKit comes pre-installed on every new iPhone, while the CarPlay platform is licensed by all major auto manufacturers. Applied MagiX identifies white label products, applies the company’s branding, improves the software and sells these improved products to consumers. Finally, Applied MagiX is developing its own proprietary line of smart home and connected car products, including Apple-compatible home cameras, sensors and alarms, as well as additional Apple-compatible smart car products in the iOS ecosystem.

Among the subsidiary’s products sold to consumers are:

• The MagixDrive Wireless CarPlay adapter, which allows users to access CarPlay wirelessly using their iPhones
• The HomeKit Secure Video Camera with iCloud Storage
• The Multipurpose Sensor with Alarm
• The Environment and Motion Sensor
• The Window and Door Contact Sensor

Market Outlook

According to Statista, the global smart home market is expected to generate revenue of more than $104 billion in 2021. The market is forecast to hit more than $187 billion in revenue by 2025, recording a CAGR of 15.75 percent.

The number of active households in the worldwide smart home market is expected to reach nearly 500 million by 2025. Household penetration is just over 12 percent in 2021 and is projected to nearly double by 2025 to more than 22 percent.

Allied Market Research valued the global connected car market at more than $63 billion in 2019 and projected a CAGR of 17.1 percent, which would push revenue to more than $225 billion by 2027. Allied identified rising consumer demand for connectivity solutions, surging need for constant connectivity, increasing dependency on technology and an upsurge in tech-savvy population as key factors driving the projected growth of the connected car market.

Management Team

James R. Thompson is the CEO, President and General Counsel of SPYR. Over the past 28 years, Mr. Thompson has deftly managed a colorful spectrum of legal clients and situations. In the process, he has helped many companies – both large and small – thrive. Now he welcomes the challenge to take the company and his career in an entirely new direction. A native of Philadelphia, he holds a J.D. from Rutgers University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Denver.

Jennifer Duettra is the Executive Vice President of SPYR. She brings a great deal of knowledge in mobile gaming and pop culture to the company. She is an attorney and was thrilled by the prospect to combine her law experience with a chance to be creative. She is a native of Colorado and received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Speech Communication from Colorado State University. She holds a J.D. from Harvard University.

Trang Nguyen is the CFO of SPYR. From 2019 to 2020, she served as the Financial Reporting Manager for Del Taco, where she was responsible for the preparation and filing of periodic financial reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. From 2016 through 2019, Ms. Nguyen was Accounting Manager for Pinnacle Tax Accounting in Los Angeles, California. She was a part of Ernst & Young’s audit team in Los Angeles from 2006 to 2008, leading engagements on interim and year-end ad SOX 404 auditing procedures for major enterprise accounts. Ms. Nguyen holds a Bachelor of Art, Business Economics (Minor in Accounting) from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a certified public accountant with an inactive license.

Dr. Harald Zink is the CEO, Founder and Chief Product Architect of SPYR subsidiary Applied MagiX. Prior to founding Applied MagiX, he was Director of Technologies and later Vice President of Technologies at Sarkissian Productions in Los Angeles. He also served as Director of Technologies at SMZ Technologies and, for more than 17 years, as Macintosh Technology Consultant to The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. He speaks five languages and holds degrees from the University of California, Riverside.

Kelly Clark is the COO of Applied MagiX. Before joining the subsidiary, he worked as Vice President of Sales Operations at TruClear Global. Prior to that, Mr. Clark was Senior Director of Program Management at Pacific Group Ventures and Operations Manager at Barco. He has also held operations management positions at Deluxe Digital Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment. Mr. Clark holds a bachelor’s degree in international business from the University of Southern California.

SPYR Inc. (OTCQB: SPYR), closed Monday's trading session at $0.03295, even for the day, on 137,880 volume. The average volume for the last 3 months is 137,880 and the stock's 52-week low/high is $0.0269/$0.231.

Recent News

• SPYR Inc. (OTCQB: SPYR) - SPYR Inc. (SPYR) Featured in Emerging Markets Report, Expands Airing Schedule of Its MagixDrive Commercial
• InvestorNewsBreaks - SPYR Inc.'s (SPYR) Applied Magix Creates Advisory Board with an Eye to the Future
• InvestorNewsBreaks - SPYR Inc. (SPYR) Updates Branding, Logo to Reflect Strategic New Direction

Cybin Inc. (NEO: CYBN) (OTC: CYBN)

The QualityStocks Daily Newsletter would like to spotlight Cybin Inc. (NEO: CYBN) (NYSE American: CYBN).

• Psychedelic drugs are on cusp of entering mainstream treatment for mental illness
• Cybin, Chopra Foundation to collaborate on efforts aimed to support education, awareness about psychedelic therapy mental health research
• Cybin “one of the only companies that may truly address the needs of patients and providers,” says Dr. Deepak Chopra

A significant increase in research and growing public support are key indicators of the future of psychedelics, which are “on the cusp of entering mainstream psychiatry,” according to a recent “New York Times” article (https://ibn.fm/GshwS). Another strong indicator of the future of psychedelics is the exciting partnership just announced by Cybin (NEO: CYBN) (NYSE American: CYBN). The psychedelic therapeutics company is joining forces with the Chopra Foundation to increase education and awareness of the potential use of psychedelics in supporting well-being and mental health (https://ibn.fm/IVdgc). It seems psychedelics are here to stay, what with the developments being seen in different parts of the country. These natural substances were being used by Indigenous communities way before the West began to embrace the use of drugs such as LSD in the ‘50s. During this period before the drugs were banned in 1970, significant research looking into psychedelic-assisted therapy was conducted, with numerous studies showing their potential in the treatment of addiction, anxiety and depression. Recently, we’ve seen psychedelics go mainstream again, thanks to new clinical trials and studies that have convinced regulatory bodies, including the U.S. FDA and the DEA, to seriously consider these drugs as alternative ways to deal with the mental health crisis. At the start of the year, Mindset Pharma announced that Otsuka, an international pharmaceutical firm, would be financing its DMT clinical trials, and this is just the beginning. With companies such as Cybin Inc. (NYSE American: CYBN) (NEO: CYBN), MindMed Inc., Awakn Life Sciences, Atai Life Sciences and Compass Pathways demonstrating the promising potential of next-generation psychedelic drugs, players in the pharmaceutical industry can’t afford to ignore the psychedelics revolution.

Cybin Inc. (NEO: CYBN) (NYSE American: CYBN) is a Canada-based life sciences company focused on the pharmaceutical development of psychedelic products, as well as the functional mushroom market.

The early-stage company boasts an experienced management team featuring industry veterans from pharmaceutical and consumer product backgrounds who have run multiple clinical trials and collectively helped facilitate billions of dollars in product revenues. The team is dedicated to the development of products and protocols within the psychedelic, pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries.

In particular, Cybin aims to further build upon and expand its intellectual property (IP) portfolio, which is structured around unique psilocybin delivery mechanisms that target a number of different therapeutic indications. In addition, the company has dedicated itself toward furthering its research and IP within the fields of synthetic compounds, extraction methods, the isolation of chemical compounds, new drug formulations and protocol regimes.

Serenity Life Sciences & Natures Journey Inc.

The company’s business model is centered around its two core subsidiaries, Serenity Life Sciences and Natures Journey Inc., which comprise Cybin’s two-pronged approach toward delivering fungi-derived psychedelic and medicinal products.

Serenity Life Sciences is focused on furthering research and development of psilocybin-based medications. Psilocybin is found in certain species of mushrooms and is a non-habit forming, naturally occurring psychedelic compound. Research into psilocybin has shown positive results for the treatment of depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction, eating disorders, ADHD and other indications.

Natures Journey Inc. operates the Journey brand, which specializes in developing proprietary medicinal mushroom products that target and promote mental wellness, immune boosting detoxification and overall general health and wellbeing.

Partnership with the Toronto Centre for Psychedelic Science (TCPS)

Staying true to its axiom of being a research-first medicinal mushroom life sciences company, Cybin recently announced its entry into a strategic partnership with the Toronto Centre for Psychedelic Science (TCPS), with the goal of furthering its ongoing psilocybin research efforts and expanding Cybin’s psilocybin IP portfolio (http://nnw.fm/9EUkI).

“While there is evidence to support psilocybin as a treatment for certain indications, the Toronto Centre for Psychedelic Science is taking a clinical approach to prove or disprove the safety and efficacy of psilocybin-based microdosing through an open science approach,” Paul Glavine, CEO of Cybin, stated in a news release.

“We are excited to join forces with Cybin and to offer our expertise. A number of firms had approached TCPS, but Cybin demonstrated a superior commitment to high-quality research and integrity in product development. Our high standards for scientific rigor and transparency will find a fitting home within the culture Cybin is cultivating in Canada and abroad,” Thomas Anderson, co-founder of the Toronto Centre for Psychedelic Science, added.

Journey’s Product Monetization & Market Potential for Nutraceutical Supplements

Although Cybin is at the forefront of companies seeking to conduct clinical trials aimed at gaining regulatory approval for psilocybin and other psychedelic products, the company has also placed a great deal of emphasis on generating meaningful revenue from its very outset.

Cybin’s Journey brand has is launching a range of supplements comprised of popular fungi-derived ingredients such as Reishi, Lion’s Mane and Cordyceps. Purported to aid focus and concentration while promoting neurogenesis, Journey’s range of nutraceutical products provides Cybin with a crucial foothold within the non-psychedelic legal supplement market, which is valued at over $25 billion globally and growing at a 9% year-over-year rate.

Pharmaceutical Psychedelics

In addition to the company’s range of non-psychedelic supplements, Cybin has plans to carry out a clinical trial with a new delivery system for its psilocybin-based medications later this year. Ultimately, the company aims to enter into technology transfer agreements with global pharmaceutical companies after phase 1 & phase 2 clinical trials are complete in order to accelerate regulatory approvals in major indications in global markets with entire lifecycle product management.

With products such as psilocybin truffles already legal in nations such as the Netherlands, Jamaica and Bulgaria, Cybin has positioned itself to capitalize on an eventual legalization of psychedelic mushroom-derived products in the future. Working within a regulatory environment with strong similarities to that which dealt with cannabis prior to the industry’s eventual legalization by the Canadian government in 2018, Cybin is laying the groundwork for the moment pharmaceutical psychedelics gain acceptance in North America and abroad.

Amalgamation Agreement and Financing

Cybin recently announced its entry into an amalgamation agreement dated June 26, 2020, with Clarmin Explorations Inc. (TSX.V: CX) and 2762898 Ontario Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Clarmin (http://nnw.fm/w04LH). Completion of the transactions contemplated in the amalgamation agreement will result in the reverse takeover of Clarmin by Cybin.

In connection with the proposed transaction, Cybin plans to complete a “best-efforts” brokered private placement of subscription receipts of Cybin, with a syndicate of agents co-led by Stifel Nicolaus Canada Inc. (Stifel GMP) and Eight Capital, to raise a minimum of C$14 million ($10 million) and a maximum of C$21 million ($15 million), with a 15% agents’ option.

To date, Cybin has raised approximately C$10,400,000 through an initial financing round and its series A financing round.

Cybin Inc. (NEO: CYBN) (NYSE American: CYBN), closed Monday's trading session at $0.797, off by 10.9497%, on 916,425 volume. The average volume for the last 3 months is 914,398 and the stock's 52-week low/high is $0.79/$3.38.

Recent News

• Cybin Inc. (NEO: CYBN) (NYSE American: CYBN) - Signs the Psychedelics Renaissance Is Here to Stay
• Cybin Inc. (NEO: CYBN) (NYSE American: CYBN), Chopra Foundation Partner in Efforts to Support Progress Toward Psychedelic-Based Therapeutics
• PsychedelicNewsBreaks - Cybin Inc. (NYSE American: CYBN) (NEO: CYBN) Working on Turning Psychedelics-to-Therapeutics(TM) Vision into Reality

CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP)

The QualityStocks Daily Newsletter would like to spotlight CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP).

• The company also participated in the H.C. Wainwright BioConnect Conference earlier in January
• CNS Pharmaceuticals recently received approval from swissethics for a pivotal Berubicin and GBM clinical trial
• The five-year survival rate for GBM is only 6.8%, with the average patient population surviving 12 to 18 months after diagnosis

CNS Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CNSP), a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of novel treatments for primary and metastatic cancers in the brain and central nervous system, recently participated in the Virtual Investor 2022 Top Picks Conference. During the event, CEO John Climaco provided a corporate presentation and then participated in a moderated questions and answer session. 

CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) is a clinical stage biotechnology company specializing in the development of novel treatments for primary and metastatic cancers of the brain and central nervous system.

The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Organ Targeted Therapeutics

The company’s lead drug candidate, Berubicin, is proposed for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme (“GBM”), an aggressive and incurable form of brain cancer. Berubicin also has potential to treat other central nervous system malignancies. Based on limited clinical data, Berubicin appears to be the first anthracycline to cross the blood brain barrier in the adult brain, and it was the subject of a successful Phase 1 study which found the MDT and produced efficacy data as well.

CNS holds a worldwide exclusive license to the Berubicin chemical compound. The company has acquired all requisite data and know-how from Reata Pharmaceuticals Inc. related to a completed Phase I clinical trial of Berubicin in malignant brain tumors. In this trial, 44% of patients experienced a statistically significant improvement in clinical benefit. In 2017, CNS entered into a collaboration and asset purchase agreement with Reata.

CNS intends to explore the potential of Berubicin to treat other diseases, including pancreatic and ovarian cancers and lymphoma. The company is also examining plans to develop combination therapies that include Berubicin.

CNS estimates that more than $25 million in private capital and grants were invested in Berubicin prior to the company’s $9.8 million IPO in November 2019.

CNS intends to submit an IND for Berubicin during the fourth quarter of 2020 and expects to commence a Phase II clinical trial of Berubicin for the treatment of GBM in the U.S. in Q1 2021. A sub-licensee partner was awarded a $6 million EU/Polish National Center for Research and Development grant to undertake a Phase II trial of Berubicin in adults and a first-ever Phase I trial in pediatric GBM patients in Poland in 2021.

The company’s second drug candidate, WP1244, is a novel DNA binding agent licensed from the MD Anderson Cancer Center. In preclinical studies, WP1244 proved to be 500-times more potent than the chemotherapeutic agent, daunorubicin, in inhibiting tumor cell proliferation. The company has entered into a sponsored research agreement with the MD Anderson Cancer Center to further the development of WP1244.

CNS Pharmaceuticals recently engaged U.S.-based Pharmaceutics International Inc. and Italian BSP Pharmaceuticals SpA for the production of the Berubicin drug product. The company has implemented a dual-track manufacturing strategy to mitigate COVID-19-related risks, diversify its supply chain and provide for localized availability of Berubicin. CNS has already completed synthesis of Berubicin’s active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and has shipped the API to both manufacturers in order to prepare an injectable form of Berubicin for clinical use.

Global Brain Tumor Therapeutics Market

The high recurrence rate of malignant brain tumors is due to reappearance of focal masses, indicating that a sub-population of tumor cells in these cancers may be insensitive to current therapies and may be responsible for reinitiating tumor growth. This necessitates the development of newer drugs in the market that demonstrate greater efficacy in treating such aggressive cancers.

A global increase in neurological disorders has placed increased attention on cancers of the brain over the past decade. Neurological disorders are becoming one of the most prevalent types of disorders, due to longer life expectancy, greater exposure to infection and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Because few treatments for primary and metastatic cancers of the brain exist, costs are high and have acted as a restraint for the brain tumor therapeutics market.

Despite progress in surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapeutic strategies, effective treatments for brain cancer are limited by a lack of specific therapies for the brain and the difficulty in transporting therapeutic compounds across the blood brain barrier. Therefore, there is a significant need for novel and effective therapeutic drugs and strategies that prolong survival and improve quality of life for brain tumor patients.

Several companies are making significant investments into R&D, which is expected to bring more treatment options to the market in the near future. Industry reports consistently project continued growth in the market.

One report estimates that the global brain tumor therapeutics market will reach a valuation of $2.74 billion in 2023, with the market expected to register a CAGR of 11% during the forecast period from 2018 to 2023. Another report projects that the global brain tumor therapeutics market will reach $3.4 billion by 2025, up from $2.25 billion in 2019 (http://nnw.fm/eDUjp).

Management Team

John M. Climaco is the CEO of CNS Pharmaceuticals. For 15 years, Climaco has served in leadership roles for a variety of health care companies. Recently, Climaco served as the Executive Vice President of Perma-Fix Medical S.A, where he managed the development of a novel method to produce Technitium-99. Climaco also served as President and CEO of Axial Biotech Inc., a DNA diagnostics company. In the process of taking Axial from inception to product development to commercialization, Climaco forged strategic partnerships with Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson and Smith & Nephew.

Christopher Downs, CPA, is the company’s Chief Financial Officer. Downs previously served as Interim Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of InfuSystem Holdings Inc. (NYSE: INFU), a supplier of infusion services to oncologists in the United States. Downs holds a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy at West Point, an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Master of Science in Accounting from the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

Dr. Donald Picker is the Chief Scientific Officer of CNS. Picker has over 35 years of drug development experience. Prior to joining CNS, Picker worked at Johnson Matthey, where he was responsible for the development of Carboplatin, one of the world’s leading cancer drugs, which was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb with annual sales of over $500 million. In addition, he oversaw the development of Satraplatin and Picoplatin, third-generation platinum drugs currently in late-stage clinical development.

Sandra L. Silberman, M.D., Ph.D., is the Chief Medical Officer of CNS Pharmaceuticals. Silberman is a hematologist/oncologist who earned her B.A., Sc.M. and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Arts and Sciences, School of Public Health and School of Medicine, respectively, and her M.D. from Cornell University Medical College. She then completed both a clinical fellowship in hematology/oncology and a research fellowship in tumor immunology at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. Silberman has played key roles in the development of many drugs, including Gleevec(TM), for which she led the global clinical development at Novartis. Silberman advanced several original, proprietary compounds into Phases I through III during her work with leading biopharmaceutical companies, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca, Imclone and Roche.

CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP), closed Monday's trading session at $0.266, off by 15.1515%, on 3,415,253 volume. The average volume for the last 3 months is 3.366M and the stock's 52-week low/high is $0.260098/$3.24.

Recent News

• CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) - CNS Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) Gives Corporate Presentation, Q&A Session at Virtual Investor 2022 Top Picks Conference
• Researchers Uncover Why Naked Mole Rats Live Long
• InvestorNewsBreaks - CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) Announces 2021 Financial Results, Corporate Update

PlantX Life Inc. (CSE: VEGA) (Frankfurt: WNT1) (OTCQB: PLTXF)

The QualityStocks Daily Newsletter would like to spotlight PlantX Life Inc. (CSE: VEGA) (Frankfurt: WNT1) (OTCQB: PLTXF).

• Plant-based e-commerce outlet and lifestyle educator PlantX Life is expanding across Canada and the United States through strategic acquisitions that make its products more accessible to consumers
• PlantX Life is based in British Columbia, Canada, with additional flagship operations in Southern California to serve the United States through its branded XMarket stores and online partnerships
• The company recently announced Q3 2022 results showing revenue gains of nearly $1 million year-over-year with total revenues of $2.74 million and gross profits of $996,512 for the quarter
• PlantX’s most recent acquisitions in the Chicago area will serve as fulfillment centers for Midwestern e-commerce, and launched same-day delivery service this month for the plant-based community in the area served by the two stores

Within the plant-based lifestyle community, PlantX Life (CSE: VEGA) (Frankfurt: WNT1) (OTCQB: PLTXF) is becoming a one-stop shopping hub for consumers seeking news and relevant new products to help make their experiences as enjoyable as possible. 

PlantX Life Inc. (CSE: VEGA) (Frankfurt: WNT1) (OTCQB: PLTXF) aims to redefine the plant-based community through e-commerce, with a core objective of becoming the most trusted and convenient destination for people living plant-based lives. PlantX is a multifaceted marketplace providing consumers all things plant-based ranging from an efficient e-commerce experience, connecting consumers with interactive PlantX brick-and-mortar stores, and a PlantX home delivery system for products, meals, recipes and more.

PlantX is a high-growth technology company focusing on consumer-packaged goods (“CPG”) for the plant-based opportunity. The PlantX platform aims to serve as the digital face of this community with its one-stop-shop for everything plant-based, including:

• An easy-to-use e-commerce shopping experience featuring the following:
• Plant-based grocery items (from all your pantry needs to vitamins, cosmetics and even pet food)
• Meal delivery with recipes created by well-known plant-based chefs throughout the world
• Plant shop – delivering a wide variety of affordable indoor houseplants to homes across Canada and the U.S.
• Easy to follow plant-based recipes every week
• Partnerships with restaurants, nutritionists, chefs and brands
• A community of like-minded individuals
• State-of-the-art flagship PlantX locations

Since first launching in February 2020, PlantX Life has offered various services available through its comprehensive platform. This online marketplace features over 10,000 items across diverse product categories such as pantry items, beverages, personal care, pet food and indoor plants. In addition, PlantX has collaborated with renowned chefs and nutritionists to create 20 unique and pre-made meals delivered to the comfort of your own home.

Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, PlantX’s mission is to spearhead the plant-based movement, celebrate and promote health and wellbeing, raise plant-based awareness in a hyper-palatable world, connect with global consumers and forge a welcoming plant-based community.

The company currently reports 4 million stock options and 24 million warrants outstanding, with a total of 88,832,159 shares issued and outstanding and a total market cap of $89.9 million on January 18, 2021. PlantX has continued to catalyze its capital markets dynamics by applying to list its common shares on the Nasdaq Capital Market (“NASDAQ”). The company’s common shares are eligible for electronic clearing and settlement through The Depository Trust Company (“DTC”) in the United States.

Market Outlook

With its comprehensive e-commerce platform, PlantX is strongly positioned for a prominent role in the fast-growing plant-based food market, e-commerce and the online food delivery sectors. The global plant-based food market is expected to reach $74.2 billion by 2027, expanding at a CAGR of 11.9%. Similarly, the online food delivery market has steadily grown, especially during the current pandemic. This trend seems here to stay. In the United States alone, the sector is expected to report $28.5 billion by 2024, with companies such as UberEats experiencing 152% increases in food deliveries in the summer of 2020.

Complementary to these trends, and as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, online sales and digitization have also both grown exponentially in 2020. Grocery shopping has seen a remarkable transition to e-commerce, with online grocery sales growing by 53% in 2020. Amid the pandemic-imposed physical interactions and related consumer behavior change, large retailers have been compelled to meet this surge in e-commerce demand. For example, Whole Foods Markets has increased its online sales capacity by over 60% in 2020. The global meal kit delivery system is also becoming increasingly popular and is expected to achieve a market value of $19.92 billion by 2027, expanding at a CAGR of 12.8%.

PlantX aims to capitalize on this anticipated exponential market growth of the plant-based, e-commerce and home-delivery industries.

Digital Platform for the Plant-Based Community

The digital interface provided by PlantX spans a health and wellness initiative that offers thousands of plant-based products, meal delivery, indoor plants, recipes and a community space for those who are like-minded about plant-based products and healthy lifestyles. PlantX has been compared to Amazon, except with a focused tailored selection of plant-based offerings.

PlantX provides everything a consumer needs for plant-based living at the click of a button. With PlantX, customers can:

• Shop
• Find recipes
• Read blogs
• Join a community forum
• Listen to podcasts
• View cosmetics
• Research vitamins
• Purchase plant-based pet foods
• Read corporate updates
• Subscribe to an insightful newsletter

The company’s website was designed with a user-friendly interface that allows customers to visit the site and easily find what they need. Forums for communicating with a plant-based community make it easier to swap recipes or locate the best restaurants serving vegan and vegetarian-friendly cuisine.

PlantX Flagship Locations – British Columbia (Canada), San Diego (California), & the State of Israel

PlantX will link the e-commerce platform to flagship brick-and-mortar stores for a highly sensory customer experience. This is anticipated to drive corporate growth and global brand recognition.

These PlantX branded flagship locations will first launch in:

• Squamish, British Columbia, Canada
• San Diego, California, United States
• Tel Aviv, State of Israel

Customer engagement, education and creating a global plant-based community will be furthered through this initiative.

PlantX Restaurant Partnerships

With consumers becoming better informed and more health and environmentally conscious, a growing number of restaurants will start catering to the needs of customers who are vegan, vegetarian, have food-allergies (or specialized diets), or simply want to eat healthier.

PlantX proactively aims to support this change and help restaurants meet the needs of the plant-based community. Restaurants that want to increase revenue, drive traffic and make an impact can therefore partner with PlantX to better serve their customers by expanding and refining their menus.

Future Goals for PlantX Life

Having successfully completed all of the milestones that PlantX had set-out to achieve in the second half of 2020, PlantX strives to continue scaling through organic growth, strategic partnerships and accretive M&A opportunities. The upcoming plans from PlantX includes a global expansion strategy for distribution in North America, Europe and Israel.

Verticals launched in 2020 include:

• New meals and programs by renowned chefs
• Flagship PlantX locations
• PlantX branded goods
• United States meal delivery and LIV
• Online peer-to-peer fitness

Management Team

Sean Dollinger, the Founder of PlantX Life Inc., has had a very active professional career that started when he was only 17. While still in college, he started a delivery service that soon became one of Canada’s largest delivery firms (before companies like Postmates and Uber Eats ever existed). In 2014, Mr. Dollinger founded Namaste Technologies, the largest international e-commerce distributor of vaporizers and accessories. He brought Namaste public and turned it into a $1.2 billion business in two years. After finding a plant-based diet himself, and seeing the massive benefits that it provided for him, he decided he wanted to find a way to give back to the community and focus on something he loves. PlantX Life was born from this desire and became his passion project. He truly walks the talk.

Julia Frank is the CEO of PlantX Life. She has an MBA in digital entrepreneurship, and, in her past roles, she set up renowned strategies for large corporations like BMW and Daimler in Germany. Beyond her professional business prowess, Ms. Frank finds tremendous joy in preparing delicious and nutritious plant-based meals and is the face of the company. She practices a healthy and active lifestyle that includes experiencing as many cultures as possible to add more knowledge of the industry at large. This globally inclusive perspective gives her the unique advantage of being able to see plant-based living from all angles.

Lorne Rapkin, CPA, CA, LPA, is the President and CFO of PlantX Life and is also a partner at Rapkin Wein LLP. He has experience with clients in almost every industry, including finance, professional services, real estate, automotive, media and manufacturing. Mr. Rapkin works very closely with investment and public firms, seeking to comply with IFRS accounting standards. His roles often require him to work with management on go-public transactions, acquisitions and mergers. His keen attention to detail is an asset to any client he works with, and PlantX is no exception.

Alex Hoffman is the company’s CMO and has spent the last 10 years in the creative field cultivating her passion for design and appreciation for beauty. This is apparent in all of the creative decisions and outcomes seen at PlantX. Her role within the company is to oversee all of the brand marketing activities, establish and execute key processes for rapid growth, and work closely with management to refine the brand’s message for key segments and emerging opportunities. She has a sharp vision for exactly what’s needed to convey the company’s core messages and principles to both the public and investors, and she is a visionary with respect to creative marketing ideas and concepts.

PlantX Life Inc. (CSE: VEGA) (Frankfurt: WNT1) (OTCQB: PLTXF), closed Monday's trading session at $0.1039, off by 11.8969%, on 81,417 volume. The average volume for the last 3 months is 81,417 and the stock's 52-week low/high is $0.10/$1.07.

Recent News

• PlantX Life Inc. (CSE: VEGA) (Frankfurt: WNT1) (OTCQB: PLTXF) - PlantX Life Inc. (CSE: VEGA) (Frankfurt: WNT1) (OTCQB: PLTXF) Celebrates Revenue Growth, Expansion of E-commerce and Store Locations
• InvestorNewsBreaks - PlantX Life Inc. (CSE: VEGA) (Frankfurt: WNT1) (OTCQB: PLTXF) Launches Same-Day Delivery in Chicago, Plainfield Areas
• PlantX Life Inc. (CSE: VEGA) (Frankfurt: WNT1) (OTCQB: PLTXF) Affirms its Commitment to Enriching People's Lives with XFitness Launch; Provides Corporate Update

LQwD FinTech Corp. (TSX.V: LQWD) (OTCQB: LQWDF)

The QualityStocks Daily Newsletter would like to spotlight LQwD FinTech Corp. (TSX.V: LQWD) (OTCQB: LQWDF).

LQwD FinTech (TSX.V: LQWD) (OTCQB: LQWDF), a company focused on developing institution-grade payment infrastructure, liquidity and solutions for the Lightning Network, recently deployed additional routing nodes in Germany and Singapore. These represent the first of many international nodes LQwD plans to deploy, secured by company-owned Bitcoin. The establishment of these nodes into these international financial hubs translates to providing a gateway to process payments in the European and Asian markets – faster and with fewer fees. “LQwD has three public nodes currently available on the Lightning Network – US-West, Singapore and Frankfurt. The company launched its first node, US-West, in November 2021 and has experienced positive week-over-week growth, which is expected to occur with the international nodes,” a recent article reads. “By deploying these and other international nodes, LQwD is positioning itself to participate in the global adoption of the Lightning Network, which is gaining momentum. The company believes that nodes in Germany and Singapore will show capability and proof of concept, which paves the way for LQwD to become a prominent liquidity and payment processor globally.” To view the full article, visit https://ccw.fm/8QhHc

LQwD FinTech Corp. (TSX.V: LQWD) (OTCQB: LQWDF) is a financial technology company focused on creating enterprise-grade infrastructure to drive bitcoin adoption.

LQwD FinTech’s mission is to develop institutional-grade services that support the Lightning Network and drive improved functionality, transaction capability, user adoption and utility, and scaling of bitcoin. LQwD is also securing a substantial position in bitcoin as an operating asset and will use its holdings to establish nodes and payment channels on the Lightning Network.

The Lightning Network is a second-layer protocol, sitting above the bitcoin blockchain, intended to facilitate faster micro-transactions and lower fees on bitcoin transactions, thus allowing mass adoption of bitcoin.

LQwD expects the Lightning Network to eclipse the patchwork of legacy financial networks that are used to move value today. The company’s software will make migration from legacy networks onto the Lightning Network easy and seamless. By onboarding more financial service providers, LQwD intends to grow the value of the Lightning Network.

The company, formerly known as Interlapse Technologies Corp., is harnessing new payment rails built on top of the bitcoin blockchain that are capable of beyond visa-level transaction volumes and backed by bitcoin, the strongest and most well-known cryptocurrency. These new rails, enabled by the Bitcoin Lightning Network, open a vast opportunity and market segment for digital payments and financial services on a global scale. LQwD aims to leverage its position as a public company to enhance trust in its products and services, and leverage its shares as currency for acquisitions, roll-up and growth, as well as to attract and retain top industry talent.

Product

The Lightning Network is a solution to massively scale the use of bitcoin for microtransactions globally, dramatically improving upon fees, as well as providing instant settlement times. The Lightning Network has experienced explosive growth and is expected to continue with the trend as usage increases. Well-known companies, such as Twitter and Square, have expressed their enthusiasm to incorporate Lightning Network into their platforms. The Lightning Network is scalable, global, open, inclusive, permissionless and decentralized. It is made up of nodes connected via payment channels, and enables off-chain, instantaneous and cheap payments at scale.

Upon launch of LQwD’s Lightning Network platform-as-a-service, users will be able to leverage the Lightning Network infrastructure to send payments instantly, securely and inexpensively anywhere in the world. Companies and service providers will be able to conduct Lightning Network transactions in bitcoin by integrating LQwD’s infrastructure with their business or web property. Connected businesses will be able to easily deploy, monitor and manage LQwD’s Lightning Network nodes with no or low-level technical knowledge required. The company fully expects Lightning Network to be a force for global change and to become the monetary exchange network of the future.

The Lightning Network, which is already built, functioning and growing, will advance bitcoin from a store-of-value to a global monetary network through payment utility. The company expects the Lightning Network will propel the growing number of active blockchain wallets to new heights, by increasing bitcoin’s scalability and lowering its fees for users. For coming generations, everything from wealth to experiences will be acquired and transacted virtually, and LQwD sees the Lightning Network as an enabling technology that can bring bitcoin to hundreds of millions of new users across the globe.

Market Outlook

Forbes in August 2021 noted that “private investors are funding companies that are building the infrastructure that will support future growth of crypto and digital assets,” and called public companies building cryptocurrency infrastructure “the hottest part of the crypto market.” While the first wave of investor interest in crypto firms was directed at companies catering to retail investors, investors have now shifted their attention to infrastructure builders, like LQwD FinTech. Forbes did not put an estimated value on the crypto infrastructure market but pointed out that large-scale adoption of cryptocurrencies will only happen when infrastructure is in place to support it. The larger digital payments market, of which crypto payments are a small fraction, is growing at more than 14 percent annually and is forecast to hit $154 billion by 2025.

Management Team

Shone Anstey is co-founder, chairman and CEO at LQwD FinTech. He has 20 years of experience in building complex technologies and has acted as technology lead for an industrial bitcoin mine and bitcoin mining pool. He is a Certified Cryptocurrency Investigator, and an advisor to the British Columbia Securities Commission. He is also co-founder of BIGG Digital Assets (OTCQX: BBKCF) and took that company public in 2017.

Barry MacNeil is CFO at LQwD FinTech. He is a member of the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia and has more than 30 years of management and accounting experience with public companies and in private practice. His previous positions include director of both public companies and nonprofits, as well as Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Controller.

Albert Szmigielski is co-founder and CTO at LQwD FinTech. He was formerly the Head of Research and Chief Blockchain Engineer at Blockchain Intelligence Group and VP Research at CipherTrace. He holds a B.Sc. in Computing Science from Simon Fraser University, and a Master of Science in Digital Currencies and Blockchain Technologies from the University of Nicosia, Cyprus.

LQwD FinTech Corp. (LQWDF), closed Monday's trading session at $0.1618, off by 11.0989%, on 111,010 volume. The average volume for the last 3 months is 111,010 and the stock's 52-week low/high is $0.1488/$4.00.

Recent News

• LQwD FinTech Corp. (TSX.V: LQWD) (OTCQB: LQWDF) - CryptoNewsBreaks - LQwD FinTech Corp. (TSX.V: LQWD) (OTCQB: LQWDF) Deploys Additional Routing Nodes, Providing Gateway to Payment Processing in Europe, Asia
• LQwD FinTech Corp. (TSX.V: LQWD) (OTCQB: LQWDF) Adds Indonesia Node as Lightning Network Reaches All-Time High
• InvestorNewsBreaks - LQwD Fintech Corp. (TSX.V: LQWD) (OTC: LQWDF) Releases Update Regarding Investor Relations Activity

Cannabis Strategic Ventures Inc. (OTC: NUGS)

The QualityStocks Daily Newsletter would like to spotlight Cannabis Strategic Ventures Inc. (NUGS).

Local governments in the state of California are granting tax relief to marijuana businesses after state legislators failed to lower cannabis taxes. The tax rollbacks by counties and cities primarily reflect lobbying from local businesses and residents as well as industry organizations. The local governments have argued that taxing the industry at all levels of the supply chain is strengthening the illegal cannabis market while also making it hard for marijuana companies to stay afloat and conduct their business. Various localities including the counties of Sonoma and Humboldt and the cities of San Diego and Desert Hot Springs are a few that have granted tax relief to businesses participating in this burgeoning industry. As efforts to reform the tax policies surrounding marijuana gather steam, licensed companies such as Cannabis Strategic Ventures Inc. (OTC: NUGS) could soon dent the illicit marijuana market that has partly been helped by legal products that are too costly, which pushes consumers to the black market.

Cannabis Strategic Ventures Inc. (OTC: NUGS) is an emerging leader in the U.S. cannabis marketplace as a publicly traded cannabis cultivator. The company is based in Los Angeles, with a 6-acre cannabis farm in Northern California called NUGS Farm North. The company’s vision is to acquire and scale assets in the legal cannabis market while achieving efficiencies through economies of scale and vertical integration.

Cannabis Strategic Ventures recently expanded its portfolio by completing the transfer process for cultivation, retail, distribution and manufacturing licenses issued by the City of Los Angeles and the State of California, and it is now working toward taking operational control of each license. The company also recently announced the upcoming grand opening of its cannabis dispensary, MDRN Tree. Following that launch, Cannabis Strategic Ventures intends to deploy another of its new licenses to establish an indoor cultivation facility with capacity to produce two to three pounds of premium exotic cannabis flower per light per harvest. The facility will have up to 1,200 grow lights and is anticipated to yield 5.75 harvests per year, bringing it to a total production capacity of over 15,000 pounds of cannabis flower annually.

Brand Portfolio

The company owns multiple brands under the Cannabis Strategic Ventures umbrella. The firm’s NUGS brand provides operational and financial strategic partnerships and a range of essential services to emerging and existing cannabis consumer brands.

The NUGS Farm North brand operates as a six-and-a-half-acre cannabis cultivation property located in northern California. The company believes that the key to success in its business is consistent quality and reliable supply to fit growing consumer demand. Cannabis Strategic Ventures addressed these consumer needs by building NUGS Farm North. At NUGS Farm North, the company’s process is customized, and its product is consistent. Located in the heart of an agricultural mecca for globally distributed produce, NUGS Farm North finds power in its product, not in its size. Decades of agricultural experience and a dedication to consistency ensure quality cannabis.

MDRN Tree is Cannabis Strategic Ventures’ customer-facing dispensary brand. MDRN Tree will open its first Los Angeles location sometime in the fall of 2021. MDRN Tree will be the company’s factory retail store – a direct interface with the end-market community – where Cannabis Strategic Ventures plans on showcasing the cannabis flower produced at its NUGS Farm North cultivation site. This farm-to-sale model offers the potential to drive simultaneous gains in quality control and profitability.

Market Outlook

The demand for legal marijuana is expected to surge due to ongoing changes in U.S. state government policies toward cannabis. In addition, the number of indications for which medical marijuana is prescribed continues to increase steadily. These factors are expected to rapidly boost legal sales of cannabis products, opening new revenue channels for producers and retailers. Furthermore, an anticipated federal legalization of medical marijuana in the U.S. will only present more high growth opportunities for this market.

According to a report from Grand View Research, the global legal marijuana market was valued at $9.1 billion in 2020. Market size is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26.7 percent from 2021 to 2028. That CAGR would put the market value at roughly $30 billion as soon as 2025.

According to the report, “One of the major factors fueling market growth is the expanding demand for legal marijuana owing to the growing number of legal cannabis countries. (Due) to recent legalizations in different countries, the use of medical marijuana for various ailments is gaining momentum worldwide. Patients suffering from chronic illnesses such as Parkinson’s, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and many neurological disorders are administered medical marijuana. The demand for cannabis oil is increasing rapidly, especially among countries with legalized medical marijuana.”

Management Team

Simon Yu is CEO, President, CFO and Secretary of Cannabis Strategic Ventures. He is also a co-founder, former COO and board member of Clubhouse Media Group Inc., a publicly traded social media company. Mr. Yu holds an MBA from the University of Southern California.

Cannabis Strategic Ventures Inc. (NUGS), closed Monday's trading session at $0.024, off by 4.3825%, on 605,339 volume. The average volume for the last 3 months is 605,339 and the stock's 52-week low/high is $0.0175/$0.198.

Recent News

• Cannabis Strategic Ventures Inc. (OTC: NUGS) - 420 with CNW - USDA Asks White House to Authorize Large Hemp Survey
• 420 with CNW - Pew Study Shows Increase in Drug-Related Arrests While Incarcerations Reduce
• 420 with CNW - Wells Fargo Blames Shortage of Truck Drivers on Federal Cannabis Prohibition, Drug Testing

GreenBox POS (NASDAQ: GBOX)

The QualityStocks Daily Newsletter would like to spotlight GreenBox POS (NASDAQ: GBOX).

GreenBox (NASDAQ: GBOX), an emerging and rapidly growing fintech company, will be participating in the 35th annual Roth Conference. GBOX chair Ben Errez and chief financial officer Ben Chung will attend the event, make a presentation, and be available for one-on-one and small group meetings with investors. The event is scheduled for March 13–15, 2022, and will be held in person in Dana Point, California. The Greenbox executives will present at on March 15 at noon PT. The elite event includes one-on-one and small-group meetings between carefully selected companies and institutional investors. In addition, the event will include fireside chats, thematic industry panels and presentations by executive membership. An estimated 400 private and public companies from an array of sectors will be in attendance; those sectors include blockchain/cryptocurrency, business services, consumer and health and wellness, healthcare, oil and gas, meals and mining, technology and media, and sustainability and ESG. To view the full press release, visit https://ibn.fm/Ovo14

GreenBox POS (NASDAQ: GBOX) is an emerging financial technology company leveraging proprietary security and token technology to build customized payment solutions for business. The company’s mission is to build compliant, cutting-edge blockchain ledger tokenized solutions for the diverse, evolving and dynamic global market.

GreenBox applications enable an end-to-end suite of turnkey financial products which offer improved fraud detection and better handling efficiency of large-scale commercial payment processing volumes for its merchant clients globally. The company’s proprietary blockchain and smart contract token technologies create seamless payment processing using digital encryption keys.

GreenBox is a unified platform providing scalability for businesses to accept payments, transact, send, settle and convert in a single versatile ecosystem. GreenBox operates a private and proprietary blockchain-based payment platform that offers distinct advantages when compared to traditional payment technologies, including greater security and data privacy, as well as enhanced identity theft protection and quick settlement.

As the settlement engine for financial transactions, GreenBox’s blockchain technology is a distributed ledger that uses digitally encrypted keys to verify, secure and record details of each transaction conducted within GreenBox’s private ecosystem. The speed and security of the platform allows GreenBox to log immense volumes of immutable transactional records in real time for Tier-1 partners around the world.

In November 2021, GreenBox announced the closing of a previously announced $100 million convertible note financing. The company plans to use proceeds for acquisitions, a planned stablecoin spin-off, and additional working capital toward the company’s future growth. The initial conversion price equals a more than 80 percent premium to the market price of the company’s common stock on October 29, 2021, and values the enterprise at more than $700 million upon conversion.

Brands & Solutions

The company offers multiple solutions and brands under the GreenBox label. The other brands that are nested under the GreenBox POS label include coyni, ChargeSavvy, QuickCard, Transact Europe [didn’t yet close] and Northeast Merchant Systems. Each of these brands play a large role in allowing GreenBox to accel in customizing payment solutions across different verticals and industries.

Payment Solutions

The GreenBox platform offers blockchain secure, robust payment processing solutions for both individual consumers and businesses. The company combines the power and security of blockchain with bank-level tools necessary to both settle transactions and monitor cash flows. Customers can transfer cryptocurrencies like USDC, Ethereum or Bitcoin from external decentralized crypto wallets to their GreenBox wallets. They can also exchange those tokens from their GreenBox wallets to any supported coin. Customers can easily offload in USDC to a debit card or a multitude of gift cards.

White Label Solutions

The company’s white label platform allows it to partner with firms seeking blockchain-based tools to manage merchant relationships. White label partners can monitor cash flows, as well as run reports on merchant transactions, chargebacks, agent and affiliate commissions and more. Partners can access the platform through their partner portal to manage business relationships with full visibility. The platform’s cutting-edge technology saves partners time and simplifies their payment processing. It ensures compliance with automated Know Your Customer and Know Your Bank services and allows customers to set up automated payouts.

coyni Stablecoin

The company is planning soon to launch its own stablecoin, coyni (CYN). coyni is equivalent to the value of the U.S. dollar on a one-to-one ratio. Stablecoin allows for instantaneous transactions with blockchain security just like other cryptocurrency tokens, but without the price volatility of traditional cryptocurrencies. The CYN token is expected to make possible features like digital dollar accounts, cross border payments, international payment processing and other payment solutions. As a smart contract technology, coyni will offer instant settlement using the GreenBox blockchain ledger in any location and currency – crypto or fiat – all at lower fees and in a tokenized secure ecosystem.

Market Overview

A Mordor Intelligence report put the transaction value of the global digital payments market at $5.44 trillion in 2020 and projects the market to be worth $11.29 trillion by 2026. That represents a CAGR of 11.21 percent during the period of 2021-2026.

The report notes that the global COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on e-commerce is likely to encourage strengthened international cooperation and further development of policies for online purchasing and supply. The report states, “The pandemic has made it clear that e-commerce can be an important tool/solution, especially considering the fact that e-commerce sales can support small and medium businesses that form the backbone for certain economies. This is expected to substantially spur the growth of digital payment methods across various economies.”

According to Mordor, other drivers of the growth trend in digital payments include:

• Greater convenience, favorable government policies and evolving consumer behavior worldwide
• Rapid rise in smartphone penetration throughout emerging economies
• Introduction of mobile wallets across the world
• Widespread adoption of retail digital payment services across the vast population of China, serving as a kind of test case for other countries

Management Team

Ben Errez, Chairman of the Board of Directors

Ben Errez’s past positions have included positions at large companies like Microsoft and Intel. He has brought this expertise to lead GreenBox into the forefront of the blockchain-based financial software, services, and hardware market.

Mr. Errez was one of the early managers of Microsoft in 1991. From 1991 to 2004, he served as Software Development Lead for the Microsoft International Office Group. He led the International Microsoft Office Components team (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) in design, engineering, development, and successful deployment. He also served as Executive Representative of Microsoft Office and was a founding member of the Microsoft Trustworthy Computing Team both within the company and internationally. Mr. Errez co-authored the first Microsoft Trustworthy Computing Paper on Reliability. At Microsoft, he was responsible for the development of the first Microsoft software translation Software Development Kit (“SDK”) in Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, and Simplified Chinese, as well as the development of the first bidirectional extensions to Rich Text Format (“RTF”) file format and all bidirectional extensions in text converters for Microsoft Office. He also contributed to the development of the international extensions to the Unicode standard to include bidirectional requirements under the World Wide Web Consortium (“W3C”).

In 2004, Mr. Errez transitioned into the world of consulting, where he held the position of Principal Consultant from founding to the present date, through which he advises clients in the South Pacific region with market capitalizations ranging from $50 million to $150 million on commerce, security, reliability, and privacy.

In 2017, immediately before partnering with Fredi Nisan to launch GreenBox, Mr. Errez was asked to take over the Microsoft Alumni Network for the Southern California region as a regional director. Mr. Errez has been a principal of GreenBox since its inception in 2017.

Fredi Nisan, Chief Executive Officer

Fredi Nisan’s career in technology began during his years of service in the Israeli Defense Forces, where he served as IT Manager for all of Israel’s Northern Bases. After serving in the military, Mr. Nisan opened and operated a computer hardware store before becoming the Inventory Operations Manager for Zicon Israel in 2005, a hardware and software producer. At Zicon, he supervised inventory operations, worked on quality controls for motherboards and chips, and educated customers on software and hardware product functionality. Subsequently, Mr. Nisan moved to the United States, where he worked for One Coach in San Diego, California, as a business coach. One Coach specializes in customized growth solutions for small business owners, including the latest strategies for sales, internet marketing, branding, and ROI. Mr. Nisan was consistently ranked as the top salesperson for small business coaching while working with One Coach.

In 2010, Mr. Nisan launched Brava POS, where he served as President until 2015. Brava POS provided point of sale (“POS”) systems for specialty retail companies. Mr. Nisan developed software to provide clients with solutions for issues ranging from inventory management to payroll to processing high volume transactions in the form of a cloud-based POS system. This system had the capability to manage multiple stores with centralized inventory and process sales without an internet connection, and offered a secure login for each employee, as well as including advanced inventory management and reporting, plus powerful functionality for its end users.

In 2016, Mr. Nisan founded Firmness, LLC. Through Firmness, he created “QuickCitizen,” a software program that simplifies the onboarding process for new clients of law firms specializing in immigration issues. The QuickCitizen software significantly reduced law firms onboarding processing time from more than three hours to approximately 15 minutes. Mr. Nisan has been a principal of GreenBox since its August 2017 inception. In January 2018, Firmness sold QuickCitizen to GreenBox.

Jacquline B. Reynolds, Chief Marketing Officer

Jacqueline B. Reynolds is the company’s Chief Marketing Officer. She served most recently as vice president of marketing for Sprouts Farmers Market. She has built her reputation as a world-class global marketer, working with Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Verizon, Walmart, L’Oréal, Xbox, 7-Eleven and many other Fortune 500 brands. She has managed award-winning marketing programs with partners such as the NFL, Super Bowl LIV, the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup, Sony Pictures, Universal Music and others.

GreenBox POS (NASDAQ: GBOX), closed Monday's trading session at $2.8, off by 6.9767%, on 281,544 volume. The average volume for the last 3 months is 281,544 and the stock's 52-week low/high is $2.6101/$20.78.

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