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Realize it or not, we are in the midst of an energy transformation away from fossil fuels.  Need evidence? Tesla recently shattered its record for electric cars delivered during a quarter. Ford is pumping $500 million into Tesla rival Rivian as the electric car industry heats up. Keeping promises made on the campaign trail, President Trump has been performing CPR on the coal industry since taking office, yet use of the dirty fuel is at a 41-year low.

Further, while financial institutions worldwide restrict investments in carbon-spewing fossil fuels, billionaire investors like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Ma are following market trends towards clean energy to protect against climate change.

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It’s a seismic trend shift that fully-reporting diversified holding company SinglePoint, Inc. (OTCQB: SING) intends to capitalize on as well.  In May, the company made its largest acquisition ever, bringing solar-broker upstart Direct Solar of America into its portfolio. It hasn’t taken long for SinglePoint to see the rewards of the novel business model.

Why Residential Solar?

Direct Solar has only been around for about 1-1/2 years. The company was born out of the vision of its CEO, Pablo Diaz, when his real estate development company was asked to bid the solar portion of a golf facility complex. Noticing the steep growth curve opportunity, Diaz founded Direct Solar with the plan of re-shaping the traditional solar sales business model with a process that could get solar onto more houses than ever before.

Being well attuned to the contracting space, Diaz recognized the high expense to assemble the necessary infrastructure and the lengthy time to action to penetrate multiple markets, much less the entire U.S. with a new solar company. He also was wise enough to see that, while it was a commercial job that introduced him to the market, residential comprised less than 1.5 percent of the $187 billion solar market in 2018.

A little more due diligence revealed that the default rate on residential solar is less than 1 percent. Diaz attributes this to the fact that homeowners are conditioned to pay their electric bill every month without fail.

The solution to offering homeowners affordable alternative energy was for Direct Solar to become the first company to employ a Rocket Mortgage business model, serving as a broker between contractors, lenders and consumers.

The process is brilliantly simple. Leveraging all available subsidies from local to federal, a network of licensed solar contractors and a group of money lenders, Direct Solar provides homeowners an opportunity to take money typically spent monthly on an electric bill and divert it to a solar system. Subsequently, the homeowner realizes not only the benefit of reliable energy, but economic benefits also, such as improved home value and electricity that is cheaper than buying from a utility company.

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Who Loves It?

Homeowners love Direct Solar because the company is a one-stop shop. Just like people go to Lending Club (NYSE: LC) to utilize the firm’s vast loan resources and technology to quickly vet lender’s varying covenants, Direct Solar saves people hours of wasted time and headache to find loan options.

The company is also versed in all the different solar subsidies for homeowners. For instance, the U.S. government offers a 30% tax credit for the whole installed cost of a system. On the state level, Illinois’ “Solar For All” program has made the state a veritable hotspot for the industry with lucrative subsidies to drive installations.

When consumers are educated that they can add a material asset to their home, save disposable income and do something good for the planet with the government paying perhaps for one-third or more of it, the option can be quite attractive.

Furthermore, consumers can enjoy Direct Solar curating the job for them. Not every contractor is perfect for every job. Rather than a homeowner meeting and trying to select from the contractors bag of goodies, Direct Solar makes sure that the contractor fits the customer’s complete needs.

Contractors love Direct Solar because they are bringing business from people actively looking to add solar to their home. To that point, Direct Solar is effectively a free advertiser and marketer bringing work to contractors. Customer acquisition is a financial burden for solar companies that often cannot be justified from either advertising or sales staff perspectives.

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That translates immediately to the top and bottom lines for contractors.

In order to readily penetrate new markets across the country without making a physical appearance, Direct Solar has created proprietary online training software to educate partners on the complete process. The company is already operating in eight states, with the entire nation now accessible with the software.

SinglePoint has been relatively hush-hush about another asset of Direct Solar that came with the acquisition called AI Live. A few teasers have been dropped here and there about the technology that will utilize artificial intelligence for a brand new means of lead generation in the solar market. All Diaz had to say about that in a recorded conversation with SinglePoint President Wil Ralston was that they’re currently working the kinks out of the technology and that it will help generate an entire new segment of business once completed.

Always creative in marketing, Direct Solar recently struck a deal to become the exclusive marketing partner to support the various fall sports programs for 47 Texas Schools across Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and Waco. Between August 1 and December 31, 2019, any solar systems that are sold within these school districts will result in a $250 donation to the Fall Sports Booster Program at the school.

“We hope that this promotion will be a great success. Nothing would make me happier than to cut some very large checks at the end of the year to support these schools and their sport programs,” said Diaz in an announcement of the new inititative.

Sales Surging

SinglePoint made the acquisition of Direct Solar looking at trailing-twelve-month revenue of approximately $1.5 million. As a testament to demand, sales have been skyrocketing. From mid-May to mid-June (the first 30 days under SinglePoint ownership), the company signed contracts to deploy $1.7 million in solar systems, while widening its footprint into Tampa, Orlando and St. Louis, with the Miami markets coming soon.

The $1.7 million in revenue is expected to generate about $803,769 in gross profit and $361,541 in net profit.

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Based upon the latest figures (and likely factoring in seasonal factors), SinglePoint management forecasts 2019 revenue of $7.0 million.

The Cannabis Factor

SinglePoint is a holding company that fancies itself the Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) of the OTC markets. SinglePoint CEO Greg Lambrecht made the comparison a little tongue-in-cheek in a call with RedChip Money Report’s Dave Gentry, but he was speaking in seriousness about how well recent investments are paying off.

The company has deepened its roots on several verticals in the cannabis space, an exploding market that dovetails extremely well with Direct Solar’s offerings. The initial focus may have been on residential, but the SinglePoint subsidiary is now finalizing development of a commercial lending solution that will serve small-to-medium businesses (SMBs), including those in the cannabis space, with a platform like its residential offering. The plan is to have the new business operations running in the coming weeks.

As explained by Diaz and attested to by Ralston, electricity is one of the single biggest expenses for cannabis cultivators. With lighting and HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) representing intense costs, solar is a natural solution to improve margins.

A lingering problem for the market has been that the traditional banking system stayed at arm’s length to marijuana companies because cannabis remains a Schedule I drug alongside heroin at the federal level. Wall Street moved a bit slow at first, but with the incessant flow of changing regulations in favor of cannabis in the Americas and abroad, big money has been steadily streaming into the cannabis markets to support innovation, which bodes well for a first mover like SinglePoint with Direct Solar.

Disclaimer

The above article is sponsored content. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CannabisFN.com and CFN Media, has been hired to create awareness. Please follow the link below to view our full disclosure outlining our compensation: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/

About Ash Stringer

The changing tide of legislation in the marijuana industry has made the future of the market continue to look bright for investors as we look ahead to the next few years. With new laws going into place in the U.S. and abroad in places such as Canada and Germany, the market is on pace to continue growing with a massive amount of ferocity for the future. One of the biggest pieces of news to hit the market has been the legalization of cannabis nationwide in Canada for recreational use.

This is the first time that a G7 nation has put in this type of legislation and the public is still waiting to see how it will play out. The actual ability to purchase recreational cannabis is scheduled to happen sometime within the next few months. Some companies have shown massive amounts of promise in the industry and both the up and coming as well as the well-seasoned public companies could be set to capitalize on the new opportunities ahead.

Marapharm Ventures Inc. (MDM) (MRPHF) recently signed a letter that will allow them to take over Full Spectrum Medicinal Inc, another cannabusiness-based company. According to one report, “Marapharm Ventures will merge Full Spectrum application with Health Canada Application. It helps to become a licensed cannabis manufacturer of premium flower for commercial use. The company will be able to deliver organic and quality cannabis products in a cost-effective way and boost profits.”

The Canadian market has continued to present a large amount of promise as mentioned before, and Marapharm looks to be one of the main companies that could benefit from this new legislation, especially with their eyes set on growth in the U.S.’s northern neighbor.

Read More: 5 Key Developments That Put Marapharm (MRPHF) On The Map

The company works to build engineered bio-secure facilities, which are extremely scalable and energy efficient. One of the largest issues in the market has been the high cost and uses of energy, which can end up making a product significantly more expensive. With the technology from Marapharm, not only can products be cheaper than usual, but consumers can be sure that they are saving as much energy as possible. The company also works by producing the raw cannabis plant and is in the process of entering the edible and oil markets as well so that they can be sustained for long-term growth.

Canopy Growth (WEED) (CGC) has been at the forefront of the cannabis revolution for some time as one of the main and largest producers of cannabis in all of Canada. The company has benefitted greatly off of the new legislation out of Canada as mentioned prior, and continues to benefit the company.

Canopy Growth has also been working to become one of the major exporters of cannabis in Canada to various markets around the world. If legalization is able to occur nationwide in the U.S., this could mean an even larger market for Canopy in the near future. The cannabis market is still however very much in its infant stages which means that there is a lot of room to grow over the course of the next few years.

The hopes are high that the combination of new legislation and the changing public opinion, will both help to shape how this industry reaches its full potential in the near future. Only time will tell how well these new efforts and the various companies in the industry help to make all of this a possibility.

Capital raises and M&A activity in the cannabis industry within the first 5 weeks of 2018 alone saw investments into cannabis companies surpass $1.2 billion. This was the equivalent of the industry’s deals in 2016, in total.

This continues to support the idea that there is still a long and opportune road ahead for investors. The pioneering days of this market saw companies in the US take advantage of the hype but now it’s more about diversification and how certain marijuana companies are tailoring their business to meet the global demand catalysts.

Read More: The Big Bid For Market Domination

Disclaimer: Pursuant to an agreement between an affiliate of MAPH Enterprises, LLC, Midam Ventures LLC and Marapharm Ventures, Midam has been paid $200,000 from the company and ZERO shares of Marapharm Ventures Inc. for a duration beginning June 27, 2018 and ending July 27, 2018. We may buy or sell additional shares of (MRPHF) in the open market at any time, including before, during or after the Website and Information, provide public dissemination of favorable Information.