High Tide (HITI.C) closed their acquisition of online retailer for cannabis 2.0 products, Smoke Cartel (SMKC.OTC), today, according to a press release.

Smoke Cartel had 33 million site visits in 2020, and High Tide has expanded their distribution and access footprint in the United States market and putting them at the starting line for when the United States gets around to legalizing cannabis at a federal level.

“The acquisition of Smoke Cartel is part of our strategy to aggressively pursue M&A targets that can be immediately accretive to shareholders. Now that the transaction has closed, High Tide will move quickly to take advantage of Smoke Cartel’s proprietary and licensable drop-shipping technology to enhance all our e-commerce businesses and further drive vertical integration across all accessory business lines, while continuing to make progress on our application to list on the Nasdaq. This deal immediately gives High Tide access to Smoke Cartel’s 550,000 customers, driving more sales opportunities and increased profit margin,” said Raj Grover, president and chief executive officer of High Tide.

Smoke Cartel’s cannabis 2.0 offerings include glass water pipes, vapes, accessories for consumption and hemp based CBD products. They have a marketplace offering these products, subscription boxes and with reliable customer service, and shipping. They’ve been in business for the past seven years where they’ve been building bridges between brands, vendors and their customers.

The deal was closed for USD$8 million. The split for Hide Tide was 9,540,754 common shares for $6 million and the rest in cash. High Tide will also take Sean Geng, founder and chief technology officer of Smoke Cartel, onto their board as CTO to oversee their global IT and e-commerce needs.

—Joseph Morton