Curaleaf, Trulieve, GTI, Verano and Cresco continue to rank as the five largest cannabis companies in the world in our annual Global Cannabis 50, but there was much movement lower down our ranking of public companies by 2023 net revenue.

Among the market leaders, #1 Curaleaf extended its lead over #2 Trulieve by growing revenue 6%, pursuing the strategies CEO Matt Darin outlined in the February 2023 GCT Interview. GTI grew its revenue 4%, placing 3rd again and joining Curaleaf and Trulieve in the billion-dollar club. Rounding out the top 5, #4 Verano also extended its lead over #5 Cresco by growing revenue 7%. Cresco revenue shrank 9% as its proposed merger with Columbia Care (now The Cannabist, #8) fell apart in July. None of the top 5 matched the overall growth of US legal cannabis sales which, according to BDSA, grew 12% in 2023.

Beyond the all-US Big Five, some of the biggest gainers were public Canadian companies taking advantage of the wave of consolidation in a recreational market that also grew 12%, according to Statistics Canada. Jumping from 15th to 9th on the Global Cannabis 50 with 37% revenue growth was High Tide, whose CEO Raj Grover outlined his company’s retail growth strategies in a two-part GCT Interview in December. On the supplyside, Decibel drove 46% revenue growth in Canada to jump from 47th to 31st on the Global Cannabis 50

Tying as the biggest gainer, up a whopping 19 rankings to 20th, Glass House was relatively late to the cannabis IPO bazaar with a 6/21 IPO as a pure-play California cultivator with a staggering 5.5-million square foot facility outside Santa Barbara. In 2023, it finished going vertical, growing its retail footprint from three to 10 stores and launching the sub-$10 “Allswell Eighth” into the price-competitive California CPG market.

Also jumping up 19 rankings and moving into the top 50 for the first time at #38 was Chicago Atlantic Real Estate Finance. The commercial mortgage REIT has taken advantage of the continuing unavailability of bank financing and the closing of the equity window to most cannabis operators in recent years to build a $356-million portfolio of loans to 27 borrowers, and grew revenue in 2023 17% to $57 million.

The Global Cannabis 50 Methodology

Companies around the world were eligible for this second-annual ranking if, per their publicly reported financial statements, they generated at least 51 percent of their revenue either from the sale of cannabinoid-containing products or by providing business-to-business products and services to such plant-touching cannabis companies.

Hence, some large companies with sizable cannabis-related operations that don’t generate more than half of their revenue from cannabis—for example, Scotts Miracle-Gro and Jazz Pharmaceuticals—don’t appear in the Global Cannabis 50.

The 2024 ranking of the Global Cannabis 50 is based on reported annual revenue in each company’s fiscal year ending closest to December 31, 2023. The 2023 ranking was based on trailing-12-month revenue through each company’s quarter ending closest to September 30, 2022.

Note on name changes: Columbia Care is now The Cannabist, The Parent Company is now Gold Flora, Unrivalled Brands is now Blum Holdings. Beyond companies that simply dropped below #50, numerous companies have either closed up shop, were acquired, or had not reported fiscal ’23 revenue at press time, including WM Technologies, GreenLane Holdings, MedMen Enterprises, HEXO Corp., Fire and Flower, and Flower One Holdings.