*By Alisha Haridasani* Recent mergers in the rapidly growing legal weed industry are making it possible for fledgling cannabis companies to consolidate market share as new jurisdictions adopt legal pot. “We see a great deal of urgency to move very, very quickly,” said Cam Battley, the chief operating officer of the Canadian medical marijuana company Aurora. “This is a brand new industry on a world scale and it’s important to gain that leadership position as quickly as possible.” Aurora announced Tuesday it had acquired the hemp-based foods company Hempco a day after its $2.3 billion merger with another medical marijuana company, MedReleaf. The combined company has 11 production facilities churning out 570,000 kilograms, or 1.25 million pounds, of marijuana per year in Canada, Germany, Denmark, and Australia. The Aurora-MedReleaf merger comes as Canada is expected to legalize recreational marijuana later this year, almost two decades after the country made the drug legal for medicinal purposes. In the United States, four cannabis companies announced on Tuesday that they were combining to form a new company, TILT, which will produce and deliver marijuana products. The company is betting on more states allowing the recreational use of marijuana soon, said Alexander Coleman, the CEO of TILT. Coleman said there are 50 unique markets in the United States, and as more states allow recreational marijuana, TILT can go in and build infrastructure for production and distribution based on that individual market's demand and regulations. For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/marijuana-mega-merger).
