HCN Live! CannaPitch Takes the Innovation Stage at MJBizCon 2026

By Oscar Gonzales, HCN Newsteam · October 29, 2026

Six women founders will take the stage. Nine experienced Cannabis investors and advisors will assess their businesses. The audience will get a vote—and a chance to win tickets to next year’s show.

LAS VEGAS — On Wednesday, December 2, HCN (Highly Capitalized Network) brings HCN Live! CannaPitch to the Innovation Stage at MJBizCon 2026 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Produced by HCN in partnership with MJBizCon, the competition brings women entrepreneurs face to face with investors, operators and advisors for live pitches and candid questions about their businesses.

The Sharks will deliberate, the audience will choose its own winner, and the grand prize winner will receive a business support package valued at $10,000.

The six contestants represent different corners of the industry: women’s midlife wellness, industrial hemp, craft Cannabis, edibles, luxury smoking accessories and CBD cosmetics. Each will have to explain what she is building, who will buy it and how the business can grow.

CannaPitch, powered by HCN

HCN is a Cannabis and psychedelics business and financial media network built around one idea: capital and good companies should find each other. It covers the markets, interviews operators and puts the industry’s capital story in front of investors, executives and entrepreneurs.

CannaPitch takes that mission off the screen and puts it on a stage. It connects founders with potential investors and partners while opening a conversation the whole industry can learn from.

“CannaPitch is what HCN is about,” said Mark Collins, MBA, President and Founder of HCN, who produces and hosts the event. “We exist to connect great Cannabis companies with the investors, partners and customers who can move them forward. This year, we’re doing it live, at MJBizCon, and we’re giving women founders the spotlight they’ve earned.”

Thank you, MJBizCon

HCN thanks the MJBizCon and MJBizDaily teams for welcoming CannaPitch to the Innovation Stage, contributing to the prize package and helping share the founders’ stories with the wider Cannabis industry.

Your chair, emcee and creative team

Jessica Ferranti, founder and CEO of The Mycelia Group, will chair the nine-member judging panel of Sharks. The Mycelia Group specializes in helping scale purpose-driven, women-owned organizations through strategy and operations improvements. Jessica will lead and coordinate the panel as the Sharks put the founders through their paces.

Joining Jessica as Master of Ceremonies is the charismatic Jennifer Makris, MBA, widely known as the “Cannabis Cash Queen” and founder of Cannabis Cash Consultants. Her advisory firm helps dispensaries and cultivators optimize the physical movement and security of cash through automation and technology-driven solutions.

Jennifer will welcome the audience, introduce each founder and guide audience participation. During the Sharks’ deliberations, she will lead a founder Q&A.

HCN also thanks Proven Media’s Ashley Feagins for her work promoting the contest, and Super Critical Brands’ Katelyn Kowalsky for her excellent marketing and branding work. Katelyn designed the event’s branding and the speaker, Shark and contestant graphics rolling out across HCN’s channels.

Meet the six founders

Anea Bogue brings women’s midlife wellness to the stage

Anea Bogue is the Founder and CEO of CLEA Midlife, a wellness brand developing hemp-derived cannabinoid products for women navigating perimenopause, menopause and postmenopause. An author, educator and certified coach, she brings more than two decades of experience supporting women through major life transitions. Her work combines education about midlife with a broader effort to challenge how women are encouraged to think about aging. [1]

Bogue’s own menopause transition helped shape the business. CLEA’s range includes products marketed around focus, sleep and physical comfort, alongside a body oil. The company pairs its products with educational material intended to help women understand this stage of life and the role cannabinoids might play in their wellness routines. [2]

Her pitch brings a specific customer into focus. CLEA is building around women whose needs can be lost within broader Cannabis and wellness marketing. For the Sharks, the business raises questions about customer education, trust and how a focused brand can reach its audience.

Erica Halverson wants industrial hemp in an everyday household product

Erica Halverson is the Founder and CEO of TINY e TOILET PAPER. Her business develops hemp-based alternatives to conventional paper products, building on her experience founding TINY e PAPER. That earlier work explored hemp’s use in products ranging from packaging and business cards to other familiar paper goods. [3] [4]

Halverson’s focus is the fiber inside the plant. Through TINY e TOILET PAPER, she is working to bring industrial hemp into a product consumers repeatedly purchase. In interviews and her own public commentary, she has emphasized the connection between an end product people will buy and the processing infrastructure needed to support a larger hemp industry. [5]

Her pitch puts manufacturing and supply chains at the center of the conversation. The business case will turn on practical questions: production costs, dependable fiber supplies, access to manufacturing and whether consumers and retailers will make room for another toilet paper brand.

Tara J. Hopper combines legal experience with craft Cannabis entrepreneurship

Tara J. Hopper is the Co-Founder and General Counsel of Bada Bloom!, a Massachusetts social equity craft Cannabis company. An attorney and licensed social worker, she brings experience in Cannabis law, health law, public policy and advocacy. Her career has included legal and regulatory roles with Cannabis businesses as well as work in government and disability advocacy. [6]

Bada Bloom! combines Hopper’s legal and business background with co-founder Michael Marinaro’s cultivation and processing experience. The company draws on Marinaro’s Italian family heritage and cultivation practices influenced by his family’s vineyards. Its business spans craft Cannabis cultivation and manufacturing, with a stated emphasis on whole-plant products. [7]

The company has also announced a partnership with The Healing Rose to bring Cannabis-infused products to the Massachusetts adult-use market. Hopper’s pitch will bring the experience of an independent social equity business into the room, including the challenge of securing capital and building partnerships in a regulated market. [8]

Tiana Woodruff is building Queen Mary through products and retail relationships

Tiana Woodruff is the Founder and CEO of Queen Mary, a Cannabis edibles brand focused on products designed to fit into daily wellness routines. She brings more than 15 years of marketing experience and more than six years operating in Cannabis. Her work includes building the brand across multiple markets and developing relationships with dispensaries and budtenders. [9]

A Pueblo, Colorado native, Woodruff has described family experiences with addiction as part of the motivation behind Queen Mary. The brand’s products incorporate ingredients such as full-spectrum rosin, adaptogens and vitamins. A partnership with The Cannabist Company announced in 2025 supported its expansion into Colorado. [10]

Woodruff’s approach extends beyond getting a product onto a shelf. Her MJBizCon biography emphasizes working directly with retail teams to help products sell and support lasting dispensary relationships. That experience gives her pitch a practical retail dimension: how a smaller brand earns attention, turns awareness into purchases and keeps customers coming back. [9]

Doreen Sullivan turns smoking accessories into objects for the home

Doreen Sullivan is the Founder of My Bud Vase, a Cannabis lifestyle brand known for luxury vase bongs. The idea began in 2015 when she placed a bong among her household vases and saw an opportunity to create smoking accessories that could also work as decorative objects. What began with individual vintage finds developed into artisan pieces and a signature product collection. [11]

Sullivan arrived in Cannabis with an established creative and marketing career. Before My Bud Vase, she founded Post No Bills, an entertainment marketing agency whose clients included DreamWorks, Disney, ESPN and the U.S. Olympic Committee. She brought that experience in product design, storytelling and consumer branding into her own Cannabis business. [11]

My Bud Vase’s porcelain and glass products combine water-pipe functionality with home décor. Sullivan’s pitch brings a consumer accessories business to the competition, with a proposition built around design, personal taste and changing attitudes toward Cannabis. [12]

Mariana Larrea Arias connects CBD, luxury beauty and Mexican ingredients

Mariana Larrea Arias is the Founder of XTIGMA, a luxury CBD cosmetics and spa brand that combines cannabinoid science with organic Mexican ingredients. The venture brings her into the competition as an entrepreneur working at the intersection of Cannabis, beauty and wellness. [13]

Larrea Arias also has more than a decade of experience helping companies navigate regulated industries in Mexico. A partner in the Life Sciences and Pharmaceutical practice at Pérez Correa González, she works across Cannabis, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, consumer protection and market entry. She previously founded MLA Legal and Consulting Boutique and has advised domestic and international businesses on regulation, commercial agreements and strategic partnerships. [14]

That background gives her experience with the practical work behind launching products in regulated markets. With XTIGMA, she is applying an entrepreneurial vision to luxury CBD cosmetics and spa experiences. Her pitch adds a Mexican and Latin American perspective to a competition spanning several different Cannabis business models.

The Sharks

The founders will face investors, attorneys, operators and advisors who have collectively built companies, raised capital and structured deals across the Cannabis industry.

Jessica Ferranti serves as Chair of the Sharks. Peter Ingersoll, CEO of Safe Harbor Equity, Inc. and a Wharton-trained finance professional, serves as Lead Shark, guiding the panel’s financial assessment and judging.

The nine-member panel includes the following judges:

• Jessica Ferranti, Founder and CEO of The Mycelia Group, serves as Chair of the Sharks.
• Peter Ingersoll, CEO of Safe Harbor Equity, Inc., serves as Lead Shark.
• Marianne Cursetjee, MBA, is the CEO and Co-Founder of Alibi.
• Jay Czarkowski is a Founding Partner of Canna Advisors.
• Bob Hoban is an attorney and the Founder of Hoban Law Group.
• Jamie Pearson is the Founder of New Holland Group.
• Jeanne Sullivan is the CIO of Arcview Ventures and Co-Founder of Arcview Collective Fund.
• Jordan Tritt is the Founder and CEO of The Panther Group.
• Rachel Wright, CPA, MST, is the Founder and CEO of Verdant Strategies.

Sharks rotate as lead questioners, and every eligible judge scores every company. Each founder receives a hearing from capital, legal, financial and operational points of view.

The audience gets a vote, and a shot at a prize

Audience members will scan a QR code to give feedback and choose the HCN Audience Choice winner, a separate honor from the Sharks’ pick.

Attendees can also predict which founder the Sharks will crown. Everyone who calls it correctly goes into a drawing for two passes to MJBizCon 2027, awarded on stage at the close of the show. Winners must be in the room to claim them.

What’s on the line

The CannaPitch grand prize package is valued at $10,000 in business support:

• HCN will provide a five-episode podcast series featuring the winning company, promoted across HCN’s network, valued at $2,500.
• MJBizCon will provide conference passes valued at $2,500.
• MJBizDaily will provide sponsored editorial features valued at $2,500.
• Safe Harbor Equity, Inc. will provide consulting support valued at $2,500.

For an early-stage founder, the package offers visibility, expert counsel and a platform to keep telling the company’s story after the show.

How the afternoon unfolds

The proposed HCN production schedule runs from 2:00 to 4:33 p.m. PT. Timings and running order remain subject to final production confirmation.

Doreen Sullivan and Mariana Larrea Arias will fill the final two pitch slots, with their order to be confirmed. Networking and HCN interviews will follow off stage.

Beyond the stage

HCN’s mobile video booth will record interviews with founders, Sharks and winners. HCN plans to capture around 100 interviews across MJBizCon, with content appearing on HCN’s channels and MJBizDaily. Press from across the Cannabis trade media are expected to attend.

Sponsor HCN Live! CannaPitch

HCN is seeking sponsors for HCN Live! CannaPitch at MJBizCon. Sponsorship offers a chance to support women founders and connect with Cannabis investors, operators and industry leaders.

HCN also offers referral commissions for introductions that lead to confirmed sponsorships. Contact Mark Collins to discuss sponsorship opportunities or introduce a potential sponsor.

Be there

HCN Live! CannaPitch takes place on Wednesday, December 2, 2026, on the Innovation Stage at the Las Vegas Convention Center, 3150 Paradise Road, Las Vegas, NV 89109.

Come watch six women founders make their case, hear how experienced Cannabis investors assess a business, and cast your own vote. Follow HCN for contestant and Shark spotlights in the run-up to the show.

About HCN: HCN (Highly Capitalized Network) is a Cannabis and psychedelics business and financial media company. HCN connects investors, operators and CEOs with the companies, news and people shaping the global Cannabis, hemp and psychedelic medicine markets. Learn more at highlycapitalized.com.

About MJBizCon: MJBizCon is the Cannabis industry’s largest B2B trade show, held annually in Las Vegas.