Following last month’s acquisition, Binske’s parent company Praetorian Global is now in sole possession of the Oni Seeds genetics catalog. 

Oni has been a name in genetics circles for a long time. The deal with Praetorian includes all the intellectual property (IP) assets of Oni Seed Co. This means all the strains that made Oni famous, like Tropicana Cookies, will go to companies under Praetorian’s umbrella first or exclusively. 

We sat down with Binske founder Jake Pasternack to hear about the big move. He also serves as Chairman and CEO of Praetorian. Pasternack said the parent company was always designed to be the mechanism that distributed the IP to the companies under the umbrella but never intended to be a plant-touching entity. So the actual backstock of genetics will end up in the hands of Oni’s new sister company Binske. 

“Binske is more of our kind of Nike style offering, for the bulk of consumers,” Pasternack told L.A. Weekly. “Oni at this point, you know, has a deep-rooted fanfare, legacy, and patronage.”

This led to the question of whether Pasternack and the team planned on leveraging Oni’s roots in the community through the other brands under the umbrella or would it be kept its own little island so as to not taint the hype they bought into? Pasternack argued it would likely end up a little bit of both. 

“So piece one of that is that the Oni brand will be available for the first time in legal channels,” Pasternack said. “Piece two is that all of the other genetic IP that’s been developed over there is now Binske and is gonna feel the benefit of that. So we’re gonna basically allocate the varietals between the various brands, and then there’s a bunch of stuff leftover.”

The team is looking forward to working with production partners as they work towards Oni’s coast-to-coast launch. The initial wave of Oni products will come from years of work making selections in their breeding work to hunt winners. They argue there are over 400 things they would consider keepers in the catalog. 

Additionally, with the world of solventless hash blowing up, the Oni catalog is well-positioned to find some new commercially viable winners as they have in the past with the Tropicana Cookies. 

But what about the seeds that made Oni famous? Well as of right now, there are no plans for further seed drops. This could significantly boost the value of Oni packs already out in circulation. 

We asked Pasternack if there was a concern about any backlash from the catalog being taken in and then protected in that way. Would it affect the initial value that they spent on the brand if the community feels like it’s been disconnected from it?

“Well, I understand that perspective,” Pasternack replied. “I would kind of argue from the other side a little bit that the benefit here is now all of these genetics and varietals are going to be available to a much larger percentage of the North American population right off the bat. So whatever percentage of people who buy the seeds and grow it, I think they’re now going to be in a position where a lot more people can access it.”

Pasternack also emphasized the announcement wasn’t some financial play to bump the price of their seed stock so they could sell it at a premium through backdoor channels like web-based seed forums.

The Oni team was excited about the scale they’ll be able to operate at with the new deal. 

“We get to pop all of our seeds in mass quantity – 5,000 seeds at a time. We find 40 or 50 winners in there,” Doc from Oni said. “Some of them might not fit the purview of either [Oni or Binske], but they fit somebody else’s purview perfectly. So basically, all the varietals get categorized and licensed as needed. And it’s not just a specific strain, I guess you’d say.”

 

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