Jessica Billingsley: NASDAQ Listing Widens Scope for M&A

Interview by Danielle Edwards; article text by Bryan Mc Govern.

Akerna (NASDAQ:KERN) CEO Jessica Billingsley says a NASDAQ listing will allow her cannabis tech company to target more strategic acquisitions.

The Investing News Network (INN) chatted with Billingsley at the MJBizConINT’L event in Toronto. The executive spoke at the event, discussing the potential for data analytics to improve cannabis operations.

Billingsley is excited to see where the industry will go in terms of accountability and transparency thanks to tracking technology for legal marijuana products.

Akerna operates as a technology company in the legal cannabis space, offering compliance services to players within the sector.

Akerna was created by a merger between MJ Freeway and MTech Acquisition, which led to a NASDAQ listing that launched on June 18.

The NASDAQ listing represented a major milestone for the company’s participation in the legal marijuana industry. The executive said the listing will give the company a significant boost when it comes to pursuing strategic mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

“What it does is it gives us the platform to do a little bit of M&A within our space, so it gives us both the capital as well as the currency,” Billingsley told INN.

Akerna collects data points in the seed-to-sale pathway for the cannabis supply chain. Billingsley said the firm has tracked over US$16 billion in legal cannabis sales.

When asked if, based on Akerna’s listing, more ancillary cannabis companies in the US could reach similar senior exchanges in the near future, Billingsley said more listings will be on the way, but added that those may be achieved once the fractured state of the US cannabis market settles.

“There will be more, although I can tell you that the process was very involved and there was a very high bar and barrier to entry from a legality standpoint, and I think that to see much movement of that type, we’ll need to see some type of change on the US federal-state conflict,” she said.

Listen to the interview above to hear the rest of Solomon’s comments from the cannabis event.

Don’t forget to look for the rest of our coverage of MJBizConINT’L, with exclusive interviews and more insights from the show. You can also follow us @INN_Cannabis for real-time news updates!

Securities Disclosure: I, Bryan Mc Govern, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

Editorial Disclosure: The Investing News Network does not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the information reported in the interviews it conducts. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not reflect the opinions of the Investing News Network and do not constitute investment advice. All readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence.