Finn Hänsel is one of the most consequential founders the European cannabis industry has produced. In this episode, recorded in Berlin on a rare sunny spring afternoon, Nikita sits down with the co-founder of Sanity Group to trace the full arc of a career that moved from Boston Consulting Group through Rocket Internet, to building The Iconic in Australia, then Movinga in Germany, and ultimately to co-founding Sanity Group, the Berlin-based cannabis company that became the first major European operator to be acquired by a large mainstream corporation when Organigram, backed by British American Tobacco (BAT), completed its purchase.
The conversation covers the strategic thinking and fortunate coincidences behind the BAT relationship, including the LinkedIn message received during a family holiday in Portugal that started it all. Finn is candid about what worked and what did not, including the CBD business that once generated over a million euros per month and ultimately became a costly lesson in customer loyalty. He explains why Sanity never built its own cultivation facility, why the asset-light model from the tech world translated directly into cannabis, and why he believes a single cultivation facility would never have been sufficient to serve Sanity’s current demand.
They discuss the German regulatory environment in detail, including the health minister’s proposed law amendment, the political dynamics between the CDU and SPD within the coalition government, and the specific parliamentarians who have been most important to the industry’s defence. Finn also shares Sanity’s three-pillar forward strategy: growing Germany’s medical patient base, expanding into the UK and Poland, and positioning for Swiss recreational legalisation by 2028.
The episode closes on team building, responsible advertising, and the case for investing in political education as seriously as any marketing channel. For anyone wanting to understand how to build, fund, and exit a cannabis company in Europe, this is the episode to start with.
Key Highlights and Insights
The Asset-Light Thesis That Paid Off
Finn received upwards of 20 cultivation proposals from locations including Greece, Portugal, Croatia, Lesotho, South Africa, and Colombia. He turned all of them down.
His reasoning came directly from the tech world: the fewer assets you hold, the more freedom and flexibility you retain. He draws the comparison to the brewing industry, where no brewery grows its own hops, and to tobacco, where manufacturers contract with farmers rather than owning plantations.
That philosophy gave Sanity the ability to build differentiated brand tiers across multiple cultivators simultaneously, something a single owned facility could never have supported. With the benefit of hindsight, he is unequivocal: one cultivation facility would not have been sufficient to serve the demand Sanity is now fulfilling.
The BAT Deal: Coincidence, Candour, and a Right of First Discussion
The relationship that led to British American Tobacco investing in Sanity began with a LinkedIn message during a family holiday and a half-hour call in a hotel room in Portugal.
What separated Finn from the fourteen other CBD companies presenting to BAT that day was not a polished pitch but the opposite: he told them CBD was over and that medical THC was the real opportunity. BAT extended the call to ninety minutes.
What followed made history – a joint deal with Sanity Group involving both BAT & Organigram leading to what is considered today the largest acquisition of a German cannabis business by a North American company, and Sanity Group’s valuation at 250 million euros.
The CBD Lesson: Testing Everything Has a Real Cost
Before medical cannabis became Sanity’s core, the company ran a significant CBD business that at its peak generated over one million euros in monthly revenue. It appeared in the DM and Douglas retail channels. It even had a Douglas advent calendar placement.
Then customer loyalty proved far lower than modelled: customers were not returning at the frequency projected, and the customer acquisition cost never recovered. Finn estimates roughly a third of all capital raised went into the CBD business. Today the CBD operation generates less than 20,000 euros per month.
His conclusion is clear: having money to test everything at speed is valuable, but it also means failing more often and more expensively than a bootstrapped operator would. The CBD chapter is the counterargument to the idea that unlimited testing capital is without risk.
Political Work as a Core Business Function
Finn visited the German parliament more than fifty times in six months during the period when the health minister’s draft law amendment was circulating, at certain points attending weekly.
He is explicit that this is not lobbying or bribery but education: teaching politicians who drafted a law without consulting the industry what the market actually looks like and who the patients actually are.
He names four specific parliamentarians, including Carmen Vega and Matthias Miersch from the SPD and Simone Borchardt from the CDU, whose understanding of the industry he credits with keeping the proposed restrictions from advancing. His message to the broader industry is direct: engage with politicians, invest in political work, and do not treat low margins as a justification for not doing so.
Germany's Medical Market Has Not Yet Reached Potential
Finn argues that Germany’s current patient penetration rate of approximately 0.8% of the population is a fraction of what comparable markets have achieved.
Australia sits at around 2.5%, Israel at around 2.2%, and some US states without legal recreational cannabis have patient rates as high as 9%. His projection is that if the regulatory environment does not significantly deteriorate, Germany could reasonably reach 2.5% patient penetration within three years, representing a near tripling of the current market.
That growth thesis, rather than the current market size, is what he believes underpins investor confidence and the M&A momentum now visible across the sector.
Top Quotes from Nikita and Finn
"I said from the beginning, an end-to-end integration from cultivation to sale... It's not the right thing to do, at least for most companies nowadays."
"I genuinely believe the best combustible medicine is a rosin or resin in like a Puffco. Full terpine profile, full cannabinoid profile, quick onset, it's clean, it doesn't look like you're a crackhead and with like an Apple-esque style machine. I really believe that is the most medical product I've seen so far."
"BAT spoke to 15 or so companies that day who told them CBD was the next big thing. Whereas, I told BAT straight away, look guys, CBD is over. I think CBD is dead."
“It feels like money is back in the market for once."
"I'm actually sometimes joking and asking the question, when is the time when the big boys from Europe are buying the Canadians."
"From a cultivation perspective, the industry can be compared to that of the wine industry, where most still produce their own product... I can't wait for the champagne of cannabis, you know. And have like "California cannabis" demand these extortionate prices like champagne does."
"Well, to be honest I would say 50% of my time every day are public affairs. So really I believe that political work is one of the most important work we can do in the cannabis industry."
"I think looking at adjacent markets that are way more developed and then seeing okay where did they end up? We actually always said this: when companies were like 'we're going to be the new vertically integrated' like why? I feel like this is the only industry where people get a hard on for saying that they're vertically integrated."
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