Worcester Business Journal

10 Worcester Business Journal | September 8, 2025 | wbjournal.com to be offloaded for $500,000, and it was unable to find a buyer for its once highly sought-aer Somerville location. e firm faces an federal tax audit and upward of $20 million owed to creditors. Rev Clinic's demise is a reversal of fortune for a firm which produced a line of cannabis products owned by former Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, which grabbed headlines across the hemisphere but failed to be a hit. e receivership process has been complicated by a lack of market interest in distressed cannabis assets and the drug's federally-illegal status, said David Madoff, the court-appointed receiver for Rev Clinics and a lawyer with expe- rience in unwinding failed businesses. "Being a cannabis business, it's highly regulated and federally illegal," Madoff said. "Compared to the typical cases you usually work with, there were a lot of challenges." e downfall of a company which once attracted $50 million in invest- ment serves as a potent reminder of the difficulties faced by entrepreneurs in the state's turbulent cannabis economy. Flying high Rev Clinics first opened for business in 2017 as the state's 15th licensed med- ical marijuana company, later opening for adult-use sales following the 2016 ballot initiative legalizing recreational Revolutionary COLLAPSE e rise and fall of a major cannabis company PHOTOS | COURTESY OF KELLEHER & SADOWSKY ASSOCIATES AND REV CLINICS BY ERIC CASEY WBJ Managing Editor J ust four years ago, Fitchburg-based company Rev Clinics was one of the biggest players in the Massa- chusetts marijuana industry, with its products available in about 75% of the then-200 dispensaries across the state. Nearing 400 employees, Rev Clinics had a massive Fitchburg manufacturing and cultivation facility and operated dispensaries with high-profile locations, including one in Cambridge's Central Square and a Somerville location a short walk from Assembly Square. Inc. magazine ranked Rev Clinics as the fourth-fastest growing company in the country in 2021, with a reported three-year growth rate of 32,997%. Just four years later, Rev Clinics is in financial ruin. e company has been placed into receivership aer accumulating millions in debt. Rev Clinic's 146,000-square-foot Fitchburg facility is closed and available for lease. Its Leominster dispensary is set cannabis. At its peak, the firm employed more than 213 workers in Central Massachu- setts and nearly 400 statewide, according to information provided to the WBJ Research Department and Inc. magazine In January 2020, as Rev Clinics was well on its way to becoming a household name among cannabis consumers, when the average ounce of weed was selling to consumers at a price of $415. e com- pany brought in $40.7 million in revenue that year, accord- ing to Inc., as it eyed expansion to other states. A fine that year of $120,000 for selling vaporizer cartridges that exceeded allowed state limits for ethanol did little to slow the compa- ny. Neither did the fallout from a 2021 lawsuit against the City of Cambridge, where it challenged a two-year City moratorium allowing only businesses which were part of the state's economic empowerment certification to receive a permit for recreational sales. is program was designed to provide access to the industry for those harmed by the negative impacts of the War on Drugs, but Cambridge's moratorium blocked Rev Clinics from adding recre- ational sales to its pre-existing medical dispensary. Rev Clinics dropped the law- suit aer pressure from activists, pledg- ing to $4 million to minority-owned businesses, according to MassLive. e company turned a profit in 2021, a rarity for cannabis businesses at the time, and raised more than $50 million from investors over a four-year period, according to a profile in finance publica- tion New Cannabis Ventures. at same year, Rev Clinics freed up more capital for expansion via a lease-saleback agreement, which saw most of its Fitchburg site sold to Con- necticut-based investment firm New- Lake Capital Partners for $8.8 million. e Fitchburg facility opened in 2017. It was capable of producing 25,000 pounds of cannabis a year. Rev Clinic products were available in 150 of the 200 Mass. dispensaries by 2022, according to New Cannabis Ventures. Wholesale made up 75% of its revenue. At its peak, Rev Clinics was producing close to 200 different cannabis products, according to Inc., ranging from the standard eighth-of-an-ounce of cannabis flower, to vape pens, to canna- bis-infused confectionaries. At the time, Massachusetts cannabis companies saw endless growth on the horizon, expecting the wave of states le- galizing the drug would eventually result in changes to federal law, removing tax burdens and opening up access to tradi- tional sources of financing. Stability for the young industry seemed to be near. en, the buzz wore off. Downfall As the industry became saturated with entrepreneurs, celebrity brands, and products of varying quality, the difficul- ties running a business – let alone one that is federally illegal and involves grow- ing a finicky plant at large scale – set in. Just a year aer Rev Clinics an- nounced it was exploring expansion beyond Massachusetts, the company faced an outbreak of microbials among its plants. It had to restart its cultivation operations from scratch in April 2023, according to an article from NBC10. By that month, an ounce of cannabis was going for $179, just 43% of its Jan- uary 2020 price, according to Cannabis Control Commission data. At the time of the outbreak, a compa- ny official dismissed rumors to NBC10 the firm was heading toward its demise, saying the firm had laid off 10% of its workforce but expressing confidence Rev Clinics had avoided a total collapse. It hadn't. By November 2023, the company was struggling to make lease payments to NewLake for the multi-mil- lion-dollar property it once owned. at same year, Rev Clinics CEO Keith Cooper and Founder Ryan Ansin departed the company, according to their LinkedIn profiles. Neither responded to requests for an interview. An amendment to the lease saw NewLake recover a portion of unpaid rent, extend the lease term by five years, reduce future monthly rental payments, and receive ownership of up to 9.95% of Rev Clinics, according to a November 2023 NewLake press release. Even with amended lease terms, Rev Clinics only paid 50% of its contractual Rev Clinics tried raising revenue by ex- ecuting a sale lease- back at its Fitchburg facility. (Inset) Former CEO Keith Cooper has left the company. David Madoff, Rev Clinics court-ap- pointed receiver

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