40 Under 40
For the past five years, the Marijuana Venture staff has compiled an annual list of some of the brightest young leaders and influencers in the cannabis industry. As in past years, we have narrowed the list from hundreds of worthy candidates to present 40 individuals from the vast and ever-changing business in the United States and Canada.
It is our honor to share their stories.
Tyler Robson
Age: 31
Company: The Valens Company
Title: Founder and CEO
The main idea behind The Valens Company, an extraction business founded in 2012 outside Vancouver, British Columbia, is pretty simple at its core.
“When you look at the large [consumer packaged goods] players, how many cultivate sugar cane?” asks founder and CEO Tyler Robson. “What we did is we decided to go further down the value chain.”
Robson, a former Canadian Football League linebacker who holds a biochemistry degree from the University of Saskatchewan, says his company’s focus on science and extraction play directly into his strengths.
It has also given The Valens Company a leg up in Canada’s “Cannabis 2.0” reality, which began in January when shops were legally allowed to sell edibles, vapes and other ingestible forms of cannabis. Though the company does not offer any brands of its own, it provides ingredients and white-labeling options for both the marijuana and CBD industries. According to Robson, who is also chairman of the Valens board, the company now employs 250 people and has the capacity to extract 425 metric tons (about 468 U.S. tons) of material per year. Last quarter, the company reported $32 million in revenue, up from $2.2 million from the same time in 2019.
“We believe we’re the one-stop shop for cannabis,” Robson says.