CULTIVATED: Cyclica raises $17 million for drug discovery — Aurora Cannabis lays off workers — Barr holds up cannabis mergers

Welcome to Cultivated, our weekly newsletter where we're bringing you an inside look at the deals, trends, and personalities driving the multibillion-dollar global cannabis boom.

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Happy Friday readers,

In perhaps the most shocking news this week – at least in my little corner of the cannabis world — a Justice Department whistleblower alleged that Attorney General William Barr misused department resources to $4 because he doesn't like pot.

It's not Barr's fault the market tanked, nor is it his fault that mismanagement on the operators' part led to some of these deals failing to close. But wielding the might of DOJ, and not to mention the time, resources, and dozens of employees that these types of investigations take because of a personal vendetta is a dangerous precedent indeed.

I wouldn't say this is surprising, though. Cannabis companies exist at the margins of what will be tolerated by the US federal government. Sources who know a thing or two about this have told me this past week that the cannabis industry should remember that the Feds are not your friend — and they won't be until your business is protected by an act of Congress, or the de-scheduling of cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act.

-Jeremy

Here's what we wrote about this week:

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Toronto-based biotech Cyclica on Wednesday closed a $17 million Series B funding round, led by Drive Capital.

Cyclica CEO Naheed Kurji provided the pitch deck his team used to close the round exclusively to Business Insider. The startup uses machine learning to "flip the problem of drug discovery on its head," Kurji told me.

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Aurora Cannabis is cutting approximately 700 workers and shutting five production facilities, a company spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider. Aurora previously laid off 500 workers in February.

Executive moves

• Acreage Holdings CEO Kevin Murphy is $4. He'll be replaced on an interim basis by Bill Van Faasen, the former CEO of The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.
• Former Milwaukee Bucks player Larry Sanders $4, a California cannabis company, as an investor and strategic advisor.

Deals, deals, deals

• Canopy Growth is $4 with Acreage Holdings. Canopy will pay Acreage shareholders $37.5 million, on top of the previously announced $300 million. Canopy will also loan Acreage's US hemp division $100 million. The deal is expected to close when a "federally permissible pathway" emerges in the US, Canopy Growth CEO David Klein $4.
• Hemp company Entoura is $4, a Kentucky-based industrial hemp company.

What we're reading

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