Kinesis Co-founder to Lead New Research Firm Cannabiz

A new marijuana market research and tracking firm called Cannabiz Consumer Group has launched in the US, where it has hired Kinesis Survey Technologies co-founder Leslie Townsend as Chief Executive Officer.

At this point, 25 states plus the District of Columbia have legalized some variation of medical marijuana; four states plus DC have legalized or are implementing recreational marijuana; and several more states will vote in various referenda in November. The new firm has been set up to provide services to those markets disrupted by this legalization, joining Colorado-based cannabis industry data and insight provider BDS Analytics, which launched last year with a $1.5m round of investment funding.

Cannabiz services include market measurement and tracking, consumer and shopper segmentation and targeting, sales activation, trade area assessment and predictive analytics, combined with industry data collection, data sciences and data processing technologies. The team is led by Townsend (pictured), a co-founder of software firm Kinesis Survey Technologies, which was recently acquired by research technology and services group FocusVision.

Commenting on the launch, co-founder Rich Maturo said: 'The impact of legalized cannabis on everyday staple consumer products and services and retail establishments is without precedent. Those businesses that proactively seek to understand the migration paths will be best prepared to deal with the change that is coming their way. Given the pending ballot referendums, November 2016 is poised to be the date that future generations will point to as the genesis of this new disruptive industry'.

Web site: www.cannabizconsumergroup.com .