Aurora Cannabis

Aurora was founded in 2006 by Terry Booth, Steve Dobler, Dale Lesack and Chris Mayerson. Booth and Dobler collectively invested over $5 million of their own capital. The founding group secured a 160+ acre parcel of land in Mountain View County, Alberta, where they established Aurora's first facility. The company received its license to grow cannabis in 2014, making it the first cannabis producer to obtain a federal license in that province. They decided to establish the company in Alberta due to comparatively low corporate tax rates and an ideal farm credit program. On November 27, 2014, Health Canada issued Aurora's first license to sell medical cannabis. Since then they have built, and are operating, numerous growing facilities throughout Canada, Europe, Asia, Latin America and Oceania. On January 10, 2017, Aurora received a license from Health Canada to sell cannabis oils, having been granted a license to produce the oils in February 2016. Sales of four product lines of cannabis oils commenced in April, 2017.

After legalization in Canada - October 2018

Canada legalized the retail sale of cannabis nationally on October 17, 2018. Due to its significant capital investments, particularly in large growing facilities, Aurora had about 20% of the Canadian retail market for cannabis during early 2019.

At its year-end in June 2019, Aurora had a market capitalization of US$4.8 billion. An October 2019 report stated that cannabis stocks had "crumbled to their lowest level since 2017"; Aurora shares were also at a two-year low. The fall in stock price for Aurora and other Canadian cannabis stocks in late 2019 was attributed to the missed benchmark revenues, general lack of profitability in the industry, slow rollout of retail stores in Canada, rise in vaping-related illnesses, non-competitiveness of pricing with black market cannabis, oversupply of commercial cannabis, termination of capital expenditures, and an FDA warning that cannabidiol may cause liver injury, among others.

Public trading and acquisitions

Aurora became a publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange on July 24, 2017, and on the New York Stock Exchange on October 23, 2018.

Aurora grew through several acquisitions. By 2018, Aurora's subsidiaries included Pedanios GmbH (Germany's largest distributor of cannabis to pharmacies), CanvasRx (the largest medical cannabis patient outreach service in Canada), BC Northern Lights (an indoor growing supplies manufacturer), Aurora-Larssen Projects (a globally leading greenhouse engineering and design consultancy), and H2 Biopharma (a late-stage ACMPR applicant in Quebec)

By April 2018, the company had a market value of Can$4.5 billion; revenue in 2017 totaled Can$31.1 million. At the time, the company was concluding its takeover merger of previous competitor CanniMed Therapeutics. The takeover was finalized in January 2018, based on a Can$1.1 billion deal. The subsequent plan to purchase MedReleaf was expected to make the company the largest in Canada with a market capitalization of approximately $7 billion. Competitor Canopy Growth Corporation's market value exceeded that amount by $3.7 billion, however after a partial takeover by Constellation Brands was announced in late August 2018. By 24 September 2018, however, Tilray Inc., a portfolio company of Seattle-based Privateer Holdings, with growing facilities in Nanaimo, BC, had become the world's second most valuable cannabis company with a market capitalization of about US$10 billion.

A report in mid-September 2018 by BNN Bloomberg, stated that Coca-Cola was considering the development of cannabis-infused beverages for medical purposes (with a non-psychoactive ingredient, CBD) and was in preliminary discussion with Aurora. Although Coke and Aurora then announced that they were merely studying the market, and had no plan to announce regarding the distribution of such products. Aurora's shares increased and its market cap reached US$10.71 billion on September 18, 2018. On 20 September 2018, Tilray had become the world's most valuable cannabis company, but a major drop in share price (and a subsequent market capitalization of about US$10 billion) made it only the third largest, after Canopy Growth and Aurora.

In September 2020, Aurora Cannabis reportedly lost more than Can$3.3 billion in its recently concluded fiscal year which caused shares to drop roughly 10% in after-hours trading. A major issue has been Aurora's focus on premium cannabis as it is more expensive for consumers.

Growing facilities

Aurora Mountain was Aurora's first facility, completed in 2015. It is a 55,200-square-foot (5,130 m2) production facility in Mountain View County.

Aurora Vie is a 40,000-square-foot (3,700 m2), fully licensed, indoor production facility in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. It was the second licensed producer in Quebec, and was acquired in 2017 for $7 million when it was about 80% complete.

In 2017, Aurora Cannabis began construction of Aurora Sky, an automated 800,000-square-foot (74,000 m2) plant in Alberta that it said would be capable of producing 100,000 kilograms of cannabis annually. The land is part of the acreage owned by the Edmonton International Airport.

Construction on the Nordic 2 project in Denmark was stopped in November 2019 when the company's stock dropped to a two-year low. The Aurora Sun project in Alberta was put on a temporary hold. These decisions would lead to a savings of $190 million.

Aurora owns Pedanios GmbH, a wholesale importer, exporter, and distributor of medical cannabis in the European Union, based in Berlin, Germany. Pedanios is the EU's largest distributor of cannabis by volume of product sold. As of March 2018, it is one of three distributors to offer cannabis flowers sourced from both Canada and the Netherlands.

In January, 2018, Aurora became the first private company to be granted a supply agreement to the Italian market through its German subsidiary Pedanios. Aurora announced on January 23, 2018, that the first tender would consist of three lots of different cannabinoid profiles totalling 100 kilograms (220 lb).

A statement from the company in early October 2019 reported a funding capacity for over 625,000 kilograms (1,378,000 lb) of cannabis per year, with sales and operations in 25 countries. Weeks later however, the company was reported to be having cash flow problems and the value of its stock had dropped significantly.

CanniMed takeover

On November 13, 2017, Aurora Cannabis delivered an all-stock takeover bid to CanniMed Therapeutics's board of directors, which became public on November 14. It claimed that it had the support of 38% of shareholders. CanniMed management responded by rejecting the offer, and proposed an alternative merger with Newstrike Resources, a recreational cannabis firm, instead. CanniMed also enacted a "poison pill" to fend off the acquisition by enacting a rights plan that would allow CanniMed shareholders to vote on the Newstrike deal. On November 20, Aurora launched a hostile takeover bid for CanniMed, conditional on shareholders rejecting the Newstrike deal.