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Analyst-curated intelligence for your cannabis business.

We built Decide, the most complete connected picture of this industry that exists, and we use every modern tool — AI included — wherever it earns its place. We are not sentimental about technology.

What the tools don’t do is decide what’s worth tracking, how a market should be defined, or which question you’re really asking underneath the one you asked.

Cited in
Arnau Valdovinos, founder of Cannamonitor
Arnau ValdovinosFounder & principal analyst · Barcelona · since 2018
50+clients, five continents
20+markets advised
50+media collaborations
5industry firsts

What we do

Four things people come to us for

Strategic, high-level and downstream: operations, supply chain, marketing and sales.

01

Market

Make operational decisions with confidence

Where is the volume actually going, at what price, and who is taking it? We size the market from customs records, dispensing data and company accounts — then show you the denominator behind every figure so your board can interrogate it.

Market sizing and forecastingCompetitive analysisOperations and supply-chain mapping
02

Strategy

See where the market is going before your competitors do

Entry sequencing, pricing corridors, partner shortlists and the case you put in front of an investment committee. We have watched this industry make the same mistakes twice, which is the most useful thing we can bring to a plan.

Commercial strategyCorporate developmentBusiness plan and capital-raise support
03

Data

Ground every decision in what is actually happening

When the answer is not published anywhere, we build the dataset: surveys, structured interviews, freedom-of-information requests, retailer fieldwork, and parsing public records nobody has cleaned. It is the half of the job most firms skip.

Ad hoc primary researchProduct, price, buyer and supplier databasesSurveys and social listening
04

Regulation

Read the upside and the downside ahead of the curve

What a decree will actually do to a P&L, which licence class you need, where the bottleneck sits between legal-on-paper and available-in-pharmacy — and how long the gap has taken to close in comparable markets.

Feasibility assessmentsGo-to-market blueprintsPolicy and regulatory analysis

We don’t work directly on scientific affairs, quality and compliance, or agronomy and production engagements.

How we work

We are a data company that gives advice, not an advisory that quotes data

Almost every firm in this sector reads the news and forms a view. We start one layer down: we build and own the underlying dataset, and the advice is what falls out of it. Four things follow, and each one is easier to show than to describe.

A strict source hierarchy

Regulator filings, customs records, dispensing data and company accounts at the top. Industry surveys and trade estimates below. Press reporting is a lead, not a source. When two sources disagree we show you the disagreement and say which we’d trust.

  • Every figure carries its definition, its denominator and its period
  • The documents are kept, so you can check the conclusion yourself
  • We are picky about sources, and we go to the ones that actually work

What decides a figure

DecidesRegulator filings · customs records · dispensing data · company accounts
SupportsIndustry surveys · trade estimates
A lead, never a sourcePress reporting

Which record we publish

Cannabis shipped from Spain to Germany, 2025

Germany’s import recordBfArM4.8 tPublished
Exporter-side estimatesinterim, unofficialA lead only

For a shipment that crosses a border we publish the importing country’s figure: it is the customs counterparty and answers for the number. Estimates from the exporting side tell us where to look, and are never printed as the record.

Primary research when the answer doesn’t exist

Surveys, structured interviews, freedom-of-information requests, retailer fieldwork, and the patient work of parsing records nobody has cleaned. It is how the UK market became measurable at all.

  • Public records requested, then rebuilt into something usable
  • Fieldwork and interviews where no record exists
  • Scraping, and direct integrations with industry data sources

Records behind our datasets

🇪🇸 AEMPSOur own public-information requests, filed every year since 2023Spain’s authorised hectares, production and trade, 2018–2025
🇬🇧 NHSBSAItem-level prescription data, released under FOIThe UK product index: every dispensed item matched to a SKU
🇬🇧 Home OfficeImport licensing records, released under FOIUK flower imports by country of origin
🇦🇺 TGAFOI release 26-3221Australia by format, potency and pack size
SurveysStructured interviewsRetailer fieldworkCommercial-registry accounts

Structure that holds across borders and years

One cannabis-specific taxonomy across 120 markets, maintained over time — so a figure from Poland in 2024 means the same thing as one from Australia in 2026.

  • The same product, company and licence definitions in every market
  • Every record linked to the country, company, deal and trial it touches
  • One consolidated graph for the whole cannabis industry

Five markets, one field

Blütenflosdried flowersuszcannabis herb
→
Product formFlower

The same product, as five markets write it down. In our data it is one value, so a tonne of it compares across all of them.

Country↔Company↔Product↔Licence↔Deal↔Trial

AI where it earns its place

It runs right through our pipeline: ingestion, classification, translation, first-pass extraction. We would be worse at this without it, and anyone claiming otherwise is either behind or bluffing.

  • The decisions that shape the data are taken before a model runs
  • Models do the volume, inside definitions our analysts wrote
  • Human curation and judgement gain relevance with AI. They don’t lose it

Who does what

Before a model runsAnalysts decideWhat is worth trackingHow a market is definedThe taxonomy the data lives inWhat counts as a sourceWhich source wins
→
Inside that frameModels runIngestionClassificationTranslationFirst-pass extraction

Anyone can buy the same models. Nobody can buy eight years of decisions about what the data should be called.

“

A model can work inside a frame like that at enormous speed. It cannot build the frame, and it cannot tell you when the frame is wrong.

Who we work with

Five kinds of organisation, five very different questions

Pick the one closest to you: what we do for it, what our intelligence looks like for that question, and a piece of work we can talk about.

Foundations before the raise

You have a licence application, a thesis and a deck. What you don’t have is a defensible number. We size the opportunity properly, find the value proposition that survives contact with the market, and assemble the research a serious investor will ask for — before you go out.

  • Market sizing that stands up in diligence
  • Competitive positioning
  • Business plan and capital-raise support
The number behind the deck
decide.cannamonitor.com › Countries › GermanyLive
205 tflower imported, 2025
~900kpatients, mid-2025
€4.65/gretail flower, Jun 2026

Tonnes imported per quarter, Q1 2024 – Q1 2026

60.850.5Q1 24Q1 26
Case study
The Peak BeyondRetail technology · United States

Proving that in-store advertising moves sales

The Peak Beyond builds interactive displays for dispensaries, and had just run its first advertising pilot: nine brands across 108 smart stations. To sell the idea to brands it needed independent proof. We joined the stations’ click data to the dispensaries’ own sales records and measured the lift: sales of the advertised brands rose 76% once the ads went live.

“Great working with Arnau. We would definitely hire him again.”The Peak Beyond — Cannabis Retail Analytics

Growing revenue on evidence

You are already licensed and selling. The question is which channel, which product, which country next — and what the numbers say rather than what the trade press says.

  • Commercial and pricing strategy
  • Supply-chain and operations mapping
  • Buyer and supplier databases
Who actually holds the shelf
decide.cannamonitor.com › Countries › United Kingdom › SuppliersLive
1.77mitems dispensed, 2025
61% → 25%Curaleaf’s share in two years
49%of flower grown in Canada

% of items · Curaleaf vs the top five operators

Top five 60%Curaleaf 25%20212025
Case study
Somaí PharmaceuticalsExtraction & manufacturing · Portugal

Finding the buyers for bulk extracts and APIs

Somaí operates at scale near Lisbon, making bulk extracts, APIs and finished products for international medical markets. The question was who, specifically, to sell to. We built a qualified lead directory across API companies and CDMOs — several hundred potential partners, segmented by location, need and activity, and ranked by priority, with an outreach strategy for reaching them.

Walking in with your eyes open

You run a real business in another industry and cannabis is the adjacency. You need to know the competitive position you are walking into, what determines success here, and which of the received wisdom is wrong.

  • Feasibility and market entry
  • Import requirements by market
  • Competitor and partner directories
What “legalised” really opened
decide.cannamonitor.com › Regulatory › Spain › RD 903/2025Live
353hospital pharmacy services can dispense
22,231community pharmacies cannot
0flower products allowed
Decree published: hospital pharmacies only
Monograph: oral solutions only, no flower
Laboratory register opens
Two laboratories registered
Case study
Pax LabsConsumer technology · United States

Where a global brand actually sits on European shelves

Pax makes vaporisation devices sold worldwide, and wanted to know how far they had genuinely penetrated European retail — pharmacy, CBD shops, vape shops — across six key markets. There was no dataset for this, so we built one: a European retailer database assembled from CRM records, web-scraping and manual primary research, set against a competitive landscape drawn from the same sources. What came out was a growth roadmap, market by market.

Diligence that survives the IC

You are pricing an operator, a market or a whole thesis. We give you the independent read — including the parts management would rather you didn’t model.

  • Market and operator diligence
  • M&A and funding context
  • Independent validation of management forecasts
The deal context for any thesis
decide.cannamonitor.com › M&A & Funding › Deals per yearLive
640+deals since 2017
$40bn+disclosed value
+51%2026 vs same point of 2025

Cannabis deals per year · 2026 to 5 October

13114020172026
Case study
Essence Investment AGInvestment company · Switzerland

Reading a mature market before backing a new one

When Germany opened in 2024, Essence Investment wanted to understand the cannabis seed business before committing to it. Spain has had a legal seed market for decades, so we took it apart as the precedent: the market by channel and seed type, the supply chain and its margins, and how the leading brands position themselves — built from company accounts in the commercial registry, retail prices collected seed bank by seed bank, and interviews with the people in the trade.

An independent read for a state body

Ministries, regulators and trade agencies need numbers they can defend in public, produced by someone with no position in the outcome.

  • Export and trade intelligence
  • Policy and regulatory analysis
  • Market monitoring and benchmarking
Where an exporting nation’s flower goes
decide.cannamonitor.com › Market data › Canada flower exportsLive
114 tflower exported
C$217Mexport value
−23%weighted price, year on year

Share of export value by destination

Germany56%
United Kingdom21%
Australia14%
Other9%
Case study
Uruguay XXINational trade & investment agency · Uruguay

Export intelligence for a national industry

Uruguay legalised before anyone else and built real production capacity early. The harder question was where any of it could actually go: which import markets were open, on what terms, to whom, and at what price. We provided export intelligence on international markets for Uruguayan operators — mapping destination markets, their import requirements and the commercial realities behind them. The beneficiary wasn’t one company. It was a national industry.

BedrocanMarry JaneRua Bioscience
Arnau Valdovinos, founder and principal analyst

Arnau Valdovinos

Founder & principal analyst · Barcelona

Follow the analysis on LinkedIn →

Career

2025Universidad de AlicanteLecturer, market intelligence — GM20 programme with Universidad Miguel Hernández
2021CannamonitorFounder & principal analyst
2018Prohibition PartnersConsultant, then Data & Intelligence Manager — market-entry models, Europe and LATAM
2017GfK, now NIQResearch analyst — survey design and fieldwork for pharma, CPG and health
2016IMOP InsightsField researcher — primary research and fieldwork

Education

Political Science, UAB · MA Public Opinion Management, Universitat de València · Postgraduate Data Analytics, UOC

Why I do this

I got into cannabis market data because there were almost no reliable numbers behind the big claims. As a data professional, that looked like a large opportunity.

Ten years in market research taught me what proper data and analytics look like — and how far they can shape operational decisions, strategy and social outcomes.

When I entered the sector in 2018 there was no good data available. Market-sizing claims were enormous and contradictory, “trust me, bro” was the standard of evidence for a trend, and insights had to be scraped from the first-hand experience of operators.

Worse, companies were making expensive decisions on the back of badly defined data. Things have improved since, but there is still a long way to go before emerging cannabinoid markets get the level of data that pharmaceutical and CPG businesses take for granted.

A market that cannot be measured does not attract investment, and a regulator without visibility legislates cautiously, or not at all.

That is Cannamonitor’s vision, and what we work towards every day. Proper data lets operators make the right call ahead of everyone else, and it is a big determinant of who succeeds.

Every market we size properly is one that can be argued about honestly — and industry, patients and consumers stand to gain the most. Cannabis has spent long enough being argued about dishonestly; shortcuts only compound the stigma.

There is a lot worth getting right: cannabinoids in medicine, hemp in food and materials, an industry that employs people and strengthens the economy. None of it happens on numbers nobody trusts — so our commitment is to sound methodology and the highest level of integrity.

Arnau ValdovinosFounder & principal analyst, Barcelona
10years in consulting & market research
8years in cannabis
20+markets advised
50+media collaborations
~9kfollowing on LinkedIn
5industry firsts

Stage & podcast

FarmaforumICBCScience in the CityCannabis HubCannabis Data ScienceRespect My RegionGreen Queens
Five firsts2018 – 2025

2018

The first market-entry mandates into Europe, the year Germany opened

2019

Led the research behind Europe’s first cannabis intelligence platform

Proof

Where the work ends up, and what people say about it

Reported by national press in Spain, the UK and Germany, and across the European and Latin American trade press, continuously since 2024.

elDiario.esMerca2ICBCCannabis MagazineEl PlanteoInterempresasAgropharmInfoestancos
“The report is amazing. Congratulations for being the most loved and hated person in cannabis at the same time.”
Alessandro RossoniCo-founder & CEO, Nimbus Health
“It is the best report on the market. The depth, the concise insights, the data visualisation — all of it makes it number one.”
Yerbol KuljanovBD Director, Essence Investment
“Cannamonitor is the best source of international cannabis activity out there.”
Ruth Fisher, PhDCo-founder, CannDynamics
“This report adds great value to the sector. Many thanks for your dedication and analysis.”
Telmo GüellCEO, The Beemine Lab
“The professionalism in the approach was second only to the quality of commercial leads we generated as a result.”
Callum KellasCommercial Intelligence Study
“Excellent work. The information provided in the report is of enormous value.”
João DuarteBusiness Development, Decimal Engineered

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Collaborate

Four ways to work together

Pick the one that fits and it carries through to the form, so you don’t have to explain it twice.

Data book
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A study built around your question — sizing, entry, competitive landscape, pricing, supply chain. Including primary research where the data doesn’t exist yet.

Report · underlying data · a walkthrough session

Start a research brief
Board questionDoes the reimbursement change move our 2027 plan?Your analystHere is what changes, what doesn’t, and the data behind both.

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Ongoing analyst access for a board, an investment committee or a strategy team that needs someone to ask.

Monthly · rolling

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{ "market": "Germany", "metric": "flower_imports", "period": 2025, "value": 205, "unit": "t", "source": "BfArM" }

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Our datasets inside your own systems, reports or product. Multi-seat, API, bespoke taxonomies, white-label.

Annual licence

Talk about licensing
ColumnCannaReporter · EN, PT
ColumnKrautinvest · DE
On stagePTMC Lisbon · ICBC · CB Expo

Collaboration, media & speaking

Co-authored research, data partnerships, panels, webinars, and expert comment when you’re on deadline.

Tell us what you have in mind

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Whatever you send stays between us. We don’t share, sell or pass on enquiry details, and nothing here signs you up to anything.

What happens next

1An analyst reads everything that comes in.
2You hear back within two business days — including on the ones we can’t help with, because a quick no is more useful than silence.
3We’ll be in touch with the most useful next step, whether that is a conversation, a scoped proposal, or the product that already answers your question.
Emailinfo@cannamonitor.comLinkedInMessage Arnau
BarcelonaC/ de Pau Claris 167, 08037 · CET, working across European, North American and Australian hours

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