Sherri Haskell

Sherri Haskell is a financial-industry veteran who built her career across several fields before founding Canna Angels. She began in medicine as a cardiac nurse specialist and was the first female pacemaker representative for Intermedics in the U.S. Midwest. She then moved into finance, joining the securities division of Security Properties Inc. — described as one of the largest U.S. real estate syndicators — where she became the firm's top stockbroker within about five months, specializing in limited partnerships. Her trading career was notable enough to be featured as a case study in Dr. Alexander Elder's well-known trading book *Entries and Exits*.

Over her career Haskell has worked as a Registered Investment Advisor, stockbroker, and funds manager, and developed expertise raising capital for small public companies through P.I.P.E. (private investment in public equity) structures. She launched her own hedge fund in 2008 — timing she has candidly described as "the worst possible timing you could imagine," coinciding with the financial crisis. Across her career she reports raising capital for more than fifty companies and dozens of funds. Her LinkedIn also associates her with Capital Dynamics Consulting.

Haskell discovered the cannabis opportunity after attending an entrepreneur pitch event in San Francisco, where she was struck by the passion of founders in the space combined with the difficulty they faced accessing reliable capital under federal prohibition. She launched Canna Angels, LLC in late 2016 (publicly announced December 2016, with its first investor pitch event held in January 2017) as an angel investment consortium that matches accredited investors with carefully vetted cannabis startups. Beyond capital, the firm offers portfolio founders a post-funding support program it calls "Masters Mentorship," and provides help with deal structure, pitch development, branding, and marketing.

• Stage: Early-stage / seed angel investing, sourcing "rising star" emerging companies for a consortium of accredited investors.
• Sectors: Cannabis broadly — explicitly investing in *both* direct (plant-touching) and ancillary companies, unlike many cannabis funders. Priority verticals: agriculture technologies, genetics, bio-science and medical applications, real estate, and lab/data analytics.
• What makes her say yes — team culture: "Some of her best-performing companies have integrated legacy people with either Wall Street or big national players that have the business acumen and track record to bring to the table." She believes blending legacy cannabis founders with Wall Street/operational acumen is a key predictor of success.
• Return expectations: Her investors "are looking for tremendous ROI and home runs rather than just regional businesses" — companies with the potential to scale nationally and reach acquisition or public-listing outcomes.
• Founding rationale (her own words): "A looming challenge is that investors may not know the players or whom to trust in the industry, and at the same time cannabis entrepreneurs need reliable funding which has been difficult to access due to prohibition. Our focus at Canna Angels is to bridge this gap."
• Market timing thesis: "Thanks to voters, more than half the states in the country now have some form of cannabis legalization in place. The tipping point is upon us."