Grobo is dead.
According to several reports and a Linkedin post from Bjorn Dawson, the company’s CEO and co-founder, Waterloo-based cannabis growing device startup Grobo has gone out of business after declaring bankruptcy in early January.
The Business Development Bank of Canada now owns the company’s assets and it’s unclear what the future holds for current Grobo users.
As of right now, the servers powering the company’s automated growth system remain online, however. That said, there are reports of Grobo Grow Box 2nd-generation buyers not receiving their devices and being forced to perform chargebacks on their credit cards. Grobo sold its grow devices in the U.S. and Canada.
Grobo’s ‘AllGrowers’ online forum community also recently briefly went offline before being revived by a group of dedicated users. Further, all Grobo products are out of stock on the company’s website.
I tested out a Grobo for a few months a couple of years ago and was very impressed with the experience, though I cited its high price tag as a significant barrier. The original Grobo launched for $3,214, though the company eventually started selling cheaper alternatives. There was the Click & Grow-like $99 USD (about $123 CAD) Grobo Start and the $1,999 USD (roughly $2,502) Grobo Grow Box Gen 2, which required assembly, unlike the original version of the Grobo
Despite a significant amount of hype and even an appearance on Dragons’ Den, it’s likely that with the legalization of cannabis across Canada, the need for an all-in-one, at-home growing devices like the Grobo dropped dramatically amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
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