KINSTON – Lazy Gator’s Hemp Farm has raised $165,000 of an equity round targeted at $30 million, according to a regulatory filing.
The Lazy Gator Hemp Farm retail store in Kinston. Lazy Gator photo.
Founded in 2017, the company sells a variety of hemp-related products, including oils, extracts, and raw hemp. Hemp, which has been used for centuries in making textiles, rope and other items, does not have the psycho-active properties of the marijuana used for medicinal or recreational purposes.
Several founding fathers, including George Washington, grew hemp on their farms.
Lazy Gator founder Denis “Gator” Williams has said, “You could smoke a lightpole-sized joint and you are not going to get high off this. You are going to sleep really good, but you won’t get high.”
Hemp oils, however, are said to offer a natural path to improved well-being through its interaction with the body’s endocannabinoid system, which influences mood, appetite, sleep, hormone production, and even nervous and immune system responses.
Lazy Gator also operates a retail store and sells t-shirts, pipes, and the oils and raw hemp at 3376 Highway 55 west, Kinston, NC.
Lazy Gator is only one of several companies entering the commercial hemp product industry in North Carolina. Criticality is another.
Industrial hemp: North Carolina poised to exploit an old new crop
