What goes up….
Nevertheless, as with nearly all of its publicly traded stablemates, the downward pattern is simply as abrupt, however for much longer lasting.
The Materia deal collapsed in Could 2022 as Kanabo’s market cap crashed to £16.5m. Kanabo subsequently pursued a number of strategic pivots, shifting away from cultivation and manufacturing in direction of ‘final mile belongings’ and a service mannequin.
Kanabo acquired Telemedicine supplier The GP Service for £14m the identical yr, and by 2023, it had successfully reworked from a medical gadget producer right into a digital well being operator, launching the ‘Deal with It’ on-line clinic in March 2023 and increasing into psychological well being providers by April 2024. The corporate even opened bodily walk-in pharmacies in London and Manchester.
As late as March 2025, Kanabo was publishing optimistic buying and selling updates. The corporate reported 44% income progress for 2024 to £1.3m, although it remained loss-making with an EBITDA lack of £1.9m. Month-to-month income in January 2025 had reportedly surged 406% year-on-year to £76,842.
The corporate touted AI integration throughout its operations and an funding in a Spanish cultivation challenge that promised an extra £1m in income for 2025.
But, this optimism was short-lived. On April 04, 2025, Kanabo warned that its ‘monetary place has grow to be extra unsure over the previous month’, and introduced it was in discussions concerning potential restructuring. Three days later, the corporate’s auditor resigned. By Could 1, buying and selling was suspended at Kanabo’s personal request.
The suspension lasted practically seven months earlier than the administration announcement.
The broader sample
Kanabo’s troubles mirror the destiny of its 2021 friends. MGC Prescribed drugs, the very first hashish firm to record on the LSE in February 2021, rebranded as Argent BioPharma in January 2024 earlier than delisting from the change on December 31, 2024, sustaining listings on the Australian Securities Alternate and OTCQB Enterprise Market as a substitute.
Mobile Items largely deserted its CBD play, rebranding as Cel AI in January 2024 to give attention to AI-powered magnificence suggestions. The corporate had generated simply £67,236 in income for the yr ending August 2023 towards losses of £3.3m.
Oxford Cannabinoid Applied sciences adopted essentially the most dramatic trajectory. The pre-revenue biotech voluntarily delisted in June 2024 after its share value fell 97%, hoping to entry larger capital from personal buyers.
Lower than a yr later, in Could 2025, OCT entered administration, its drug growth pipeline and mental property now within the arms of directors.
What went improper
This collective failure is extra to do with systemic hurdles than particular person mismanagement, although not totally.
The regulatory burden proved far heavier than anticipated, with the FCA imposing new necessities in 2021 that pressured corporations to acquire authorized opinions from each territory they operated in. The minimal market capitalisation threshold was additionally raised considerably, leaving many hopefuls out of IPO competition.
Extra basically, institutional funding by no means materialised. The businesses remained largely depending on retail buyers, creating excessive volatility and limiting entry to sustained capital. Hashish shares globally confronted a sustained downturn, with market sentiment present process what one government described as a ‘full 180 shift’ from the euphoria of early 2021.
Regardless of Kanabo’s agility and efforts to diversify its providing, changing into one of many first cannabis-first gamers to broaden into normal healthcare, its failure to show a revenue in a monetary atmosphere stacked towards hashish operators has left it on the precipice.
