Graph Blockchain’s (GBLC.C) story is either going to be one of ultimate failure—an object lesson of what not to do for new companies—or an absolutely great comeback story, but what’s obvious is that they’re not willing to fly the white flag anytime soon.
First, Graph appointed Govinda Butcher earlier this month as their third CEO in a year, replacing Jeff Stevens, who had served as interim CEO and chairman after they sacked Peter Kim in February of last year.
Butcher boasts 20 years of sales experience, recruitment, personnel development and retention, brand and business development. He built his first company (We Move People), which has since spread beyond Canada to include the United States, China, and South America, and he left at a high note to become president and CEO of a successful recruitment company. So there’s some experience, for sure, and the development of a successful business, but it’s unclear as to how much that’s going to matter given this company’s track record.
This company separated from Datametrex AI (DM.C) and went public via a reverse take-over of a shell called ostensibly called RegTech, but they were swimming upstream from the start. The company bounced from project to project: offering support for Seoul, Korea’s “smart city” project, touting their big name contracts with Samsung and LG, to their latest desperate attempt at relevance by signing an LOI to acquire Shroomstreet and get into the burgeoning psychedelic space. This is mostly a company without a solid identity and with a vague, highly technical, ghost of a product.
If you’re at all curious how the shroom street deal is going—it’s not. The LOI expired on December 31, 2019, and the company is presently negotiating with key individuals from Shroomstreet to build a team and get into mushrooms. It’s a small wonder why the LOI fell through—there’s nothing in it for Shroomstreet. The original deal was a $1 million all-share purchase price at $0.05 a share.
They haven’t been up around $0.05 since they let Kim go in February of last year.
There are definitely some unusual synergies between these two companies. Graph Blockchain entered into the sector when it was little more than a graveyard and a handful of companies bleeding out after a mass sector exodus. Too late. And Shroomstreet has entered into the nascent psilocybin sector with optimism and poise, long before legalization is even a point of discussion in the culture. Too early.
Still, here’s their new CEO,
“I am excited to take on the role and pivot the company to focus on the huge opportunity that exists in the psychedelics industry. I am very passionate about the industry and see a tremendous opportunity to implement Graph Blockchain’s solutions into an e-commerce platform. My experience building brands and operating across many countries will position Graph to expand into all the legal jurisdictions for psychedelics.”
Blockchain and psychedelics
This is just another link in a long chain of deals that have fallen apart for Graph, but if there’s one positive element about this company, it’s that they’re not quite ready to hoist the white flag yet. They’ve since turned around and appointed Matt Humphreys to their board of directors to help them with a buildout of a blockchain-based e-commerce platform for psychedelics.
Humphreys is a cannabis-space veteran, responsible for designing Canada’s e-commerce site for the Ontario Cannabis Store. Humphreys carries with him 20 years of experience working in the digital space, consulting on topics like digital transformation, D2C commerce, conversion optimization, user experience and usability. His role with the company will be to optimize the website, store design, improving site speed, SEO and conversion optimization.
This doesn’t sound like a company about to fly the white flag.
—Joseph Morton
