🌿 Edible Arrangements Drops New Edibles.com For The Hemp Drinkers And Edibles Crowd

In today’s newsletter we discuss Edible Arrangements’ parent company debuts Edibles.com selling hemp drinks and edibles, Will Smith is dropping his first album in 20 years, Disney’s "Snow White" remake is set to smash box office records with its release, the Wiz founders aren’t the only ones about to get massively rich after the acquisition by Google, Governor Greg Abbott mistakenly thinks that Texas possesses a "stronger brand" than New York, and the Boston Celtics have been acquired for a record-shattering $6.1 billion dollars.

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🌿 Edible Arrangements Drops New Edibles.com For The Hemp Drinkers And Edibles Crowd

The company behind Edible Arrangements, you know the fruit baskets that people order for friends and family for special occasions or when someone dies, well they're launching a new company that sells a different kind of edibles.

My wild prediction: they’re gonna sell a LOT of them!

Introducing Edibles.com 

This new online marketplace for edibles and hemp drinks will use the parent company’s franchise network to deliver orders. That’s not only genius, but it’s all called economies of scale.

So how can a company known for delivering fruit just spin up an edibles company?

Well, you can thank the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp.

Um, ok then, but what exactly is hemp?

Hemp is defined as a plant that contains 0.3% or less of tetrahydrocannabinol, which the kids on the street refer to as THC (not really, but I thought that sounded more dramatic).

The reality is you can’t get high off of consuming hemp. Hemp contains such tiny amounts of THC that you could smoke or consume as much of it as you want without any effects of getting high. You will get sick to your stomach from eating a plant that has huge amounts of fiber in it. (I wanted to write “high amounts of fiber”, but that pun would have just been too easy).

Little known fact: It’s the chemical CBD contained in hemp that actually blocks the effects of the chemical THC that would typically get you high.

Did I just blow your mind about everything you thought you knew about edibles?

Well here’s another fun fact.

There are actually different kinds of cannabis plants, and hemp is only one of them. Marijuana is another, more popular type of cannabis plant. It’s the psychoactive component known as THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) in cannabis, usually referred to as marijuana, that is responsible for the feeling of getting “high”.

Now that we just got a botany lesson, are you ready for me to drop some more science on you in the form of market sizes?

The U.S. cannabis market size is estimated to be $38.50 billion dollars as of 2024 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.51% from 2025 to 2030. 

The global market size of the hemp industry is estimated to be $5.49 billion as of 2023, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.5% from 2024 to 2030.

And lastly, The global CBD market is valued at around $7.6 billion dollars as of 2023 and is projected to reach $36.6 billion dollars by 2033, with a CAGR of 17.5% between 2024 and 2033.

So with those kinds of market sizes and growth rates it’s easy to see why the parent company of Edible Arrangements has launched their new Edibles.com company to ride the rising fumes of the cannabis industry.

🧙 Business

With Google’s purchase of cyber-security company Wiz, it’s not just the founders of the company who are about to get massively rich. Let’s take a look at the astronomical returns some of the investors in Wiz are about to make:

Sequoia invested $10 million in the company’s initial seed round, and stands to make $3 billion dollars from their investment or a 25x return on investment.

Cyberstarts invested $6.4 million dollars in February 2020 from one of its investment funds, and that investment is now worth $1.3 billion dollars, for an insane 222x return on their original investment. Then they later invested $40 million dollars from their Opportunity fund, which is now worth $128 million dollars, which comes out to a smaller but still hefty 3.2x return on investment.

Index Ventures was also an early investor in Wiz’s seed round, and at the time of the acquisition by Google they owned a 12% stake in Wiz, which is now worth over $3.8 billion dollars. Quite the return!

🎧 Music

Will Smith is returning to his musical roots with the announcement of the release of his first full-length album in 20 years. The rapper’s new album, "Based On A True Story," is scheduled to drop on March 28th. Will Smith began his music career in the late 1980s as a rapper alongside DJ Jazzy Jeff, producing hits like "Parents Just Don't Understand" and "Summertime".

Most of the world now knows Will Smith as the movie stare, having starred in such blockbuster movies as "Independence Day", "Men in Black", and "Ali".

Say what you want about the current state of the music industry, or the current trend of mumble-rap, but I’m a big fan of Will Smith, and I’ll be checking in on our album when it drops.

👸 Entertainment

Disney’s "Snow White" remake, despite facing a barrage of online criticism concerning casting decisions and perceived deviations from the animated classic, is still poised for a huge potential box office smash. While social media influencers and critics have been talking smack about Rachel Zegler's portrayal as Snow White, and the reimagining of the seven dwarfs, the long-standing appeal of the "Snow White" narrative, and Disney's established brand recognition and marketing muscle, were always going to lead this film to box office gold.

Now all that’s left is counting how much loot the movie makes worldwide when all is said and done. Oh yea, and then rubbing it in the noses of all those haters online who said such racist things about the casting of Rachel Zegler as Snow White.

🏦 Stock Markets

Governor Greg Abbott recently said that Texas possesses a "stronger brand" than New York, a claim that disregards the established facts of New York’s financial dominance in the world’s economy. All things might be bigger in Texas, but when it comes to sizing up the impact and significance of Wall Street, Texas has a lot of growing up to do.

While Texas has its eyes set on growing their own Texas-based stock markets, New York City remains the epicenter of the U.S. stock market, anchored by not only the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, but by some of the biggest financial companies in the world.

Here’s just a little breakdown of financial companies headquartered in NYC:

✅ Investment Banks: Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley. 

✅ Asset Management: BlackRock, Vanguard, and others. 

✅ Insurance Companies: MetLife, American International Group (AIG), New York Life. 

✅ Financial Services: American Express, Bank of New York Mellon.

While Texas is undeniably experiencing a substantial economic expansion, attracting new business, and fostering new financial initiatives, these developments can not replace Wall Street. Full stop. It doesn’t matter how much Texas wants to be bigger than New York in the world of finance, or how they came up with the cute saying "Y'all Street" to differentiate themselves.

At the end of the day just saying Texas's brand is stronger forgets the last 233 years of history while New York’s Wall Street has been holding it down as the center of finance in the United States.

Simply put, that dog don’t hunt!

🏀 Sports

The Boston Celtics have been acquired for a record-shattering $6.1 billion dollars by an investment group led by Bill Chisholm, the co-founder and managing partner of the PE firm Symphony Technology Group. This sale marks the highest price ever paid for a North American sports franchise, continuing the trend of private equity firms increasingly investing in major sports teams. Bill Chisholm’s Symphony Technology Group is a prominent player in the private equity sector, and this deal highlights the increasing sophistication and financial muscle that PE firms are injecting into the sports industry.

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irl Media NEWSLETTER is written, edited, and published by Chris Thompson.