Rick Bashkoff is currently the CEO of Lit Alerts and the Managing Director of Receptive Capital. A lifetime cannabis enthusiast, Rick has served as a cannabis information resource for his family, friends and broader network for decades. What began as light conversation and cannabis stigmatized jokes at his expense, started to turn into impactful conversations as his friends and family began understanding the benefits of the plant.
Rick’s “cannabis will be everywhere” moment was in the summer of 2016. He began researching and investing in the cannabis industry as a passion project. This initial research effort quickly turned into a transformative career change.
In 2019, Rick joined Five Four Ventures, a venture capital firm in New York, as a cannabis-focused entrepreneur in residence. This included evaluating their cannabis deal flow and conducting market research on startup companies they could incubate at the firm.
Rick then went on to start Receptive Capital to advise producers, distributors, brands and investors in the legal cannabis industry. After working on nearly $400M in cannabis related deal flow, Rick created the Receptive Capital Syndicate, a group of early stage investors to invest in cannabis entrepreneurs and companies in the rapidly expanding East Coast markets.
Rick was also the SVP of Strategy and GM of Retail and Consumer Platforms at Lucid Green. where he led the launch of the retail platform and a repackaging of their marketing platform. Most importantly, he was instrumental in the closing of their $10M Series B.
Prior to his dedication to the cannabis industry, Rick started his career in the music industry at one of the largest music companies in the world (Warner Music Group). As a young executive, Rick was tasked with transforming music video assets from a cost to a revenue opportunity working with the early video streaming players including YouTube. After WMG Rick was a senior executive at two visionary startups. Howcast was a pioneering media company and one of the first digital-native companies to achieve over $1M in revenue. Zefr, was a leading SaaS platform in growth mode that provided monetization and optimization services for enterprise entertainment companies in film, TV, music and sports.
Rick is a swiss-army-knife startup executive who enjoys the managed chaos of developing and optimizing new businesses, markets and teams. He specializes in building long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships and is highly skilled in the creation and execution of a wide variety of business models and business plans. His deep cannabis passion, knowledge and relationships makes him an ideal person to work with, partner with and to help drive the growth of the cannabis industry.
