MassRoots skyrocketed to the top of the cannabis industry in both the company’s and the industry’s short existence, at one point having sufficient capital to purchase a significant amount of shares in High Times, the preeminent publication in cannabis founded in the 1970’s.
However, now they are struggling to keep afloat and have been doing so for some time.
Having gone public in 2016, it is traded on the OTC market under MSRT. They have seen their stock price plummet to being a penny stock, which they diluted more than once. It has never been higher than $2 since it went public.
A great deal of fraud has been detected in penny stock trading over the years.
Chicago investor John M. Fife, the Managing Partner of Chicago Venture Funds owns stock in MassRoots through three different companies. Fife has had his own run-ins with the SEC which alleged he engaged in fraud by manipulating an insurance company.
The CEO, Isaac Dietrich, has been in a tenuous position within the company since 2017 when he was briefly ousted but in a turn of events, the majority of the hostile board was ultimately ousted instead. He launched MassRoots in 2013 as a social media platform specializing in cannabis at a young age with a few friends who have since left the company, with little formal education and business experience.
According to Dietrch, Fife invested $2 million in the company last December and he was thankful for the support they provided. He maintained that Fife having multiple subsidiary companies, investing is a standard industry practice among investing institutions.
Fife himself refused to comment for this story.
In 2016, the company formed a partnership with the Canadian-based Aphria which MassRoots agreed to promote on its platform. Aphria recently replaced most of its C-suite executives due to a scandal.