Fort Collins cannabis equipment firm sues California manufacturer

This story was updated on June 9 with comment from NewTropic CEO Alex Rowland.

FORT COLLINS — A local maker of cannabinoid compound separators is suing a duo of California companies over allegedly failing to pay almost $110,000 for industrial cannabis equipment.

In the complaint filed Friday in the U.S. District Court of Colorado, Fort Collins-based Illuminated Extractors Ltd. claims that it was hired last year to provide equipment and consulting services for sister firms NT Ventures Inc. and ANP Holdings Inc., which do business as cannabis product manufacturer NewTropic.

The extraction machines in question use hydrocarbon compounds such as propane and butane to strip CBD and other oils from marijuana and hemp plants. Those separated cannabinoids are then used in marijuana and CBD products.

In particular, Illuminated said it built and sold the companies an industrial-scale cannabinoid extractor for $673,400, but it has yet to be paid $78,539 for the remainder of the deal. The Fort Collins company also alleges that it is owed $31,443 in unpaid lease and fees for a different piece of extraction equipment.

In a statement, NewTropic CEO Alex Rowland said Illuminated’s machine was error-prone and rendered hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of biomass during the extraction process unusable, and Illuminated itself didn’t fulfill its warranty promises. NewTropic plans to countersue for damages.

“Illuminated eventually abandoned their efforts to get the machine to work entirely. Ultimately, we felt like we were part of an R&D project rather than the consumer of a working product,” he said.

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