Paul Penney
Paul Penney, CPA is an experienced institutional investor, research analyst, private company executive and board member and an early and highly engaged cannabis industry private and public company investor, lender, strategic advisor and founder. As a Partner and Portfolio Manager of the Silver Spike Opportunities fund, Paul has developed a deep and meaningful rolodex of relationships in the cannabis industry and is considered a thought leader who is a featured speaker and panelist for cannabis industry events across the country.
More specifically,Paul’s responsibilities run broad and deep across the cannabis space ranging from managing a senior secured / equity fund to strategic advisory and financial roles with some
of the largest west-coast centric cannabis companies and THC & CBD brands.
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Utilizing his investing experience and domain knowledge base in both the traditional CPG
and cannabis related industries, Paul has co-founded two private companies in the health
and wellness (Alurx) and cannabis branding (Studio Cannabis Collective) verticals. Alurx was
launched in 2020 to produce and sell a wide range of high quality, natural and effective
CBD-infused pain management and beauty related products mainly via a DTC and affiliate
related sales distribution channel. Alurx is led by CEO and Chairman Julia Stewart, who’s
past executive leadership successes at Taco Bell, Applebees and Ihop have earned her a
spot on Fortune’s “50 Most Powerful Women” list. Studio, which was co-founded by Matt
Seashols (co-founder of Dosist) and Randy Smith (founder of Sunday Goods), is an asset
light branding company that will soon be launching five distinctive cannabis brands in the
highly attractive supply / demand backdrop state of Arizona and over the longer term aim
to expand and scale into other states in time.
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Previously to his current roles, Paul was a Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst
focused on special situations at Northland Capital starting in 2016. During his tenure at
Northland, he covered a wide range of public companies across a diverse and highly
dynamic industry coverage base ranging from hospitality, technology, retail, logistics and
transportation. Also during his tenure at Northland, Paul became the first US based analyst
to officially provide / publish research on the legalized cannabis sector and was an active
advisor and underwriter for several of the largest cannabis MSO (Multi-State Operator)
going public transactions.
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Prior to his active involvement in the cannabis industry, Paul served as a Partner for the
Lang Media Group (LMG), where he held several strategic, operating and investing roles
across a wide range of both private and public retail, media and technology-related
companies. Prior to LMG, Paul served as a Portfolio Manager at Cypress Funds (a
TCW-related investment firm) and as a Founding Partner at Compass North Capital, an
equity focused hedge fund, dating back to 2008.
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Leading up to his private and public company investing experience, Paul worked on the
institutional equity desks at Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers, where he covered some of
the largest equity, debt and multi-strategy funds up and down the West Coast. During his
roles at both Lehman and Merrill, he was actively involved in over ~200+ IPO and secondary
equity offerings across a wide and diverse range of industries and companies (most notably
MasterCard, CIT Group, Lululemon, UnderArmour, Tempur-Pedic, MercadoLibre). He
commenced his sell-side / investment banking experience as Senior REIT Analyst at
Robertson Stephens in San Francisco, where he published research on 20+ public REITs
across the hotel, multifamily and self-storage sectors and was an active participant in
numerous public and secondary equity offerings.
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Paul holds a BS degree in Business (Accounting) from Santa Clara University and is a
(non-active) CPA. He was born in Boston, MA, grew up in California (San Jose / San
Francisco) and currently resides in Scottsdale, AZ. with his wife and two boys.