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Having moved away from cannabinoids towards less regulatorily complicated hemp products, German hemp supplier Signature Products is taking a step back to its roots, saying it will step up its marketing of Ccell vape devices that can be filled with CBD extracts.
The Pforzheim-based company, which makes cannabinoid distillates and isolates from hemp, also announced that it had been valued at upwards of €10m – more than double its estimated worth just two years ago.
The latest valuation has already paid off: a German company recently invested in Signature, money it will use to support its Ccell business and expand links with the Chinese company behind Ccell hardware, said co-founder and CEO Florian Pichlmaier (pictured).
“The funds will be used for expanding our vaping department – everything which is connected to vaping,” Pichlmaier told CannIntelligence.
That includes supplying more Ccell hardware, such as reusable batteries and cartridges for CBD extracts, he said. It also includes building infrastructure, customer-specific branding and hiring more people – likely around a 25% increase with five or six new permanent staff joing its 23 strong workforce.
‘We want to be the biggest’
Pichlmaier declined to identify the German financial backer, but he said the investment amounted to less than €2m.
“Our plan is to be the biggest distributor of Ccell products in Europe,” he said. “We’re really happy with the quality. We tried other products and found that the hardware leaked after a few weeks, but we never had this issue with Ccell.”
Shenzhen-based Ccell is a subsidiary of vaping device developer Smoore International Holdings, whose shares trade on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Investing further in Ccell products may give Signature a leg up once Germany legalises recreational cannabis – which Pichlmaier believes will probably happen by the end of 2023 because the country “needs money urgently”.
THC-containing extracts obtained from cannabis flowers could be consumed through vaporisers such as those manufactured by Ccell. Signature intends to capitalise on legalisation by focusing on wholesale hardware trading and customised branding, Pichlmaier said.
“We will try to supply on a B2B basis. So we will trade in private labelling. This means we will, on one side, trade hemp raw materials to recreational cannabis shops, but also, on the other, for private labelling,” he added. “We will also offer our Ccell hardware direct and with private labelling.”
A ‘super untransparent’ value chain
Beyond that the company intends to see how the recreational market regulatory framework develops in Germany. It could potentially allow for further opportunities, depending what is permitted. “We have to see how the law develops. If it allows THC oils to be produced for recreational use, we would love to do this,” Pichlmaier said.
He said Signature began as a CBD company in 2019 but shifted into hemp after discovering that the hemp value chain was “super untransparent”. “We asked for documents, certifications, and it was just horrible. So I was really forced to change.
“We decided to start from the beginning of the hemp chain, from cultivation to processing, to get a better understanding about the quality and origin of the product. We still do CBD, but we expanded our portfolio to more of the beginning of the value chain, focusing on hemp seeds, hemp protein and hemp seed oil.”
One outcome of that was an €800,000 grant from the state of Baden-Württemberg in August 2021 that enabled Signature to develop hemp-based vegan meat substitutes in cooperation with the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart. Building on this project, the first commercial plant-based meat products made from hemp protein will be available in German supermarkets in the first quarter of 2023.
“The grant helped us improve our business, grow faster and get a much better understanding of the hemp protein value chain,” Pichlmaier said. “We used it mostly for infrastructure and human resources, but also for raw materials.”
– Jennifer Freedman CannIntelligence contributing writer
