United States’s First Commercial Testing Cannabis Lab, Steep Hill, Announces Expansion into Illinois

BERKELEY, Calif. – Steep Hill, the United States’ commercial cannabis testing lab, expands with a new licensee partner into the state of Illinois. In 2019, Illinois became the 11th state to legalize an adult use cannabis program and the 1st state to legalize adult use by an act of state legislature, along with the medical program established in 2014.

Steep Hill, CEO, Nigel Stobart, commented, “We are extremely pleased to partner with Steep Hill Illinois’ passionate and visionary team. With their success in serial business ventures and commitment to patient and consumer safety with testing, we believe we will see this group expand their horizons quickly.” Steep Hill is a leader in the cannabis testing space, known for its consistency of quality testing, customized technology, and state of the art equipment. The company is dedicated to providing best in class customer service and has been the innovation leader driving a nascent testing industry forward for the last 13 years.

Steep Hill Illinois is led by a team of experienced, reliable cannabis industry veterans combined with successful entrepreneurs, strategists, and investors.

Driving strategy and business development, as well as government and regulatory issues, is co-founder Nick Etten. Nick, an Illinois native, is a nationally recognized cannabis industry veteran who brings several years of sector experience. Nick most recently served on the executive leadership team at Acreage Holdings, a leading multi-state cannabis operator (MSO), where he led government affairs, policy, and strategy as the SVP of External Affairs. Nick also founded the Veterans Cannabis Project, focused on changing the conversation about medical cannabis veterans’ cannabis access.

Co-founder John Tinsley will drive strategy with Nick and focus on business operations, partner relations, launching the Illinois lab and growth into other markets. John’s comes to the business after two decades in consulting, where he mostly recently was a Partner with EY-Parthenon, a leading global strategy consultancy. His expertise in growth strategy, market development, M&A and operational transformation will be instrumental to a successful launch in Illinois.

Co-founder Matt Grabowski will lead finance and non-laboratory operations. Matt has successfully launched a number of businesses nationally in the fitness, health, and waste management sectors. His experience in building businesses, transactions, and financial structuring will be invaluable towards scaling operations.

Steep Hill Illinois will be available to support laboratory and other production activities in 2022. John Tinsley stated, “We are currently building out the lab, which will be strategically placed in Ottawa, IL within a 90-minute drive of the largest MSOs in Illinois.” Leveraging the market-leading Steep Hill platform, Steep Hill Illinois will provide the full-screen of Illinois regulated tests including cannabinoids, pesticides, heavy metals, and more. “We will also provide research and development testing services for cultivators and processors; supporting our partners in the development of new products and supporting their growth.”

(This information is primarily sourced from Steep Hill Inc.  Highly Capitalized has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Read our Disclaimer here).