Canadian cannabis-tech company Roto-Gro is gearing up for a January listing on the Australian Securities Exchange, The Australian reports. The company produces a fully automated rotary hydroponic growing system of the same name, which can be used to grow up to 420 cannabis plants. Australia legalized medical cannabis on Nov. 1.
Roto-Gro CEO Adam Clode said that the new market in Australia is “a huge opportunity for peripheral industries” specifically those that “help grow, extract and distribute cannabis products.”
“The potential for medicinal cannabis is obvious — companies which are applying for a cultivation license at the moment will no doubt be looking for options to produce cannabis as efficiently and cost effective as possible while ensuring consistency of product,” he said in the report.
The company is planning to offer 18 million shares at $0.20 AUD (USD $0.15) for a maximum of $3.6 million AUD (USD $2,615,130).
Clode said that the device, in which plants rotate around a single light source and receive nutrients from a stand-alone reservoir, uses “about half the energy of traditional growing systems and 80 percent less water.” The unit could be used for growing other “perishable food,” in addition to its utility for cannabis growers.
“Medicinal cannabis is just one potential use of the Roto-Gro technology,” he said. “There are much bigger issues we’re trying to solve as well, like how to sustainably produce food in dense urban areas with a lack of fertile land or lack of clean reliable water.”
The ASX hosts other cannabis-related companies, mostly in the biomedical field.