Entrepreneur Justin Hartfield is hoping to smoke the competition with his passion for pot.
The 29-year-old Californian has raised roughly $10 million from investors — money he will soon invest in marijuana-related companies as states start to roll back laws that banned cannabis concerns.
“With changing legislation, someone’s going to be the Anheuser-Busch of marijuana,” Hartfield told The Post.
To that end, Hartfield and two partners launched Emerald Ocean Capital this past summer. The idea at first was to have EOC serve as a venture capital fund — but it morphed into a PE firm.
A Cal-Irvine graduate, Hartfield estimates that the marijuana market, now a $35 billion to $45 billion market, will grow larger than the $75 billion tobacco business — to about $150 billion in 10 years — if the government lifts federal laws restricting its use, as some state have done.
That would take the financial might of the cannabis business nearly as high as the $188 billion alcohol market, Hartfield said.
Emerald Capital is hoping to make a lot of green investing in everything from retail stores and growers to related credit processors, noted Hartfield, who dropped out of his final year of business school at Irvine to pursue his pot passion.
A diversified sort, he also founded the venture, WeedMaps.com, which serves as a Zagat guide-like social-media forum of sorts of weed purveyors, and SearchCore, which he sold for millions three years ago.
“I was like, ‘F- -k this, I’m going to be rich,’ ” Hartfield said of his decision to drop out of business school in 2010.
Emerald Ocean represents just a handful of companies intent on striking it rich off medical and recreational use of marijuana in the US.
Much of that marijuana mania was kicked off by Washington and Colorado, which have both passed laws broadly legalizing marijuana.
So far, Emerald Capital has taken longer than it expected raising funds from wealthy investors willing to fork over a $500,000 minimum for as long as 10 years.
The longer investment period is based on the expectation that federal legislation will lift the floodgates by eventually lifting its prohibition of marijuana use.
According to the HuffingtonPost.com, Hartfield had hoped to raise as much as $25 million for his marijuana fund by this time.
Hartfield says that he’s extended his capital-raising efforts until end of the first quarter of next year.
Emerald had originally planned on structuring his business as more of a venture capital fund, which would provide seed money to a wide array of start-ups.
But recently, Hartfield realized that these nascent pot-focused businesses may require more hands-on management than he previously expected and thus a PE firm set-up would be better.
For Hartfield, his experience in pot dates back years, he said.
“I smoke weed every single day of my life and I have for a while,” he said. “I believe in marijuana as a product.”
His business has spent $1 million last year on marijuana lobbying efforts.