For years, Sherbinskis occupied a rare place in cannabis culture.
The brand was widely associated with premium flower, cultural relevance, and one of the most influential strains of the modern era. Then, quietly, it disappeared from shelves in California.
By 2022, Sherbinskis was no longer a symbol of top-shelf cannabis in the state’s legal market but a distressed brand, carrying millions in debt, sold repeatedly, struggling with operations, and largely absent from dispensary shelves.
That was the moment PrimeTime Capital entered the picture.
PrimeTime Before Sherbinskis
PrimeTime founders Oleg Spektorov and Anthony Messina moved from Massachusetts to California in 2018, drawn by what they saw as the center of gravity for the cannabis industry.
By 2021, the company had expanded beyond vape manufacturing into terpene formulation and wholesale flower distribution, and founded Boutiq. That year, PrimeTime as a parent company reported roughly $120 million in revenue, driven largely by wholesale flower and white-label manufacturing.
“Our specialty is product development,” Spektorov said in an exclusive interview with High Times. “From the actual hardware and packaging to what’s inside the vapes… making high-quality, consistent products.” That operational focus would become central to the Sherbinskis acquisition, since Sherbinskis had operational chaos and was unable to deliver on the promise of high-quality flower and concentrates.
“They did very cool marketing,” Spektorov added. “Reputationally, it was still one of the top brands in the industry. But operationally, they had done very poorly in California.”
The result was inconsistency, particularly from the perspective of dispensaries and budtenders, which ultimately damaged the brand. At the time PrimeTime began talks, Sherbinskis was reportedly doing less than $100,000 per month in California sales.
PrimeTime engaged with Sherbinskis in 2022 as one of several interested parties. The deal was structured as a merger rather than a simple acquisition.
“We gave up eighteen-and-a-half percent of …
Read More
Author: Rolando García / High Times
