Although the pandemic has spelled doom for many businesses, Canadian cannabis entrepreneur Bruce Linton admits it has helped raise millions for his latest venture, Collective Growth.

Collective Growth targets U.S. based investment opportunities related to hemp and CBD and started trading on the Nasdaq on May 1. In an initial public offering of a special-purpose-acquisition corporation, Linton and the team raised $150 million.

“People have been at home, and they’ve been seeing the blue skies with less traffic and pollution,” Linton told MarketWatch. “It makes them think more of sustainability, and that’s where the hemp plant comes in. If you deconstruct the plant, it can be used for sustainable building materials, and that’s good at a time when people are aware there’s a problem with the supply chain and the environment.”

Linton is the former co-CEO of one of Canada’s biggest pot companies, Canopy Growth, a position he was fired from in July 2019. His next career move lasted less than a year as he was let go from the board of U.S.-based Vireo Health International Inc. in June this year following run-ins with the management. “When you bring the money in, I wanted to make sure we use it and go hard,” Linton told BNN Bloomberg last month. “I am a more demanding person when I and business colleagues own the company.”

As for Collective Growth, Linton is focussing on Europe where the regulations aren’t as strict as the U.S.

“The best technology is in Europe,” he told MarketWatch. “Because they didn’t get around to banning hemp, they have the best in field and some small and medium-size companies doing really interesting things in hemp.”