Among them is MassRoots Inc., a Denver-based company that last year released a free mobile app that enables users to share photos of their weed use, similar to photo-sharing service Instagram Inc.

Isaac Dietrich, MassRoots’s co-founder and CEO, said he secured $150,000 from three investors after pitching at an ArcView meeting in Denver last year. His app has 30,000 monthly active users, he said.

“We’re still exploring exactly how to monetize the app,” said Dietrich, 21. “We’re getting people to use the app on a daily basis. As people use it more and more and our network grows, then we’ll start focusing on advertising.”

Justin Hartfield said he started Emerald Ocean Capital LP, a Newport Beach, California-based marijuana private-equity firm, in March “to take advantage of the changing cannabis laws.”

Weed Mapper

“It was only last year when we started getting inquiries from investors, from entrepreneurs, from existing businesses that they wanted to expand, or they wanted to get into this space,” said Hartfield, 30, CEO of Emerald Ocean and WeedMaps.com, a marijuana dispensary location website that started in 2007.

His firm plans to raise about $10 million by the end of the first quarter to invest only in ancillary businesses “that don’t directly touch the sun,” Hartfield said.

Jim Willett, a retired business owner from Woodinville, Washington, said he has invested more than $1 million since joining ArcView in December 2012.

His investments include a Denver-based marijuana grower and store, Kansas City, Missouri-based Agrisoft Development Group, which sells software that allows marijuana businesses to comply with regulations for tracking their product from seed to sale, and Canna Security America, a Denver-based security equipment company for pot businesses.

“I’m looking for companies that are already established,” said Willett, 63, who plans to attend the pitch meeting in Las Vegas. “Something that will be desirable wherever marijuana is made legal.”

Willett said that when he was a Navy pilot, he monitored the California coast for freighters smuggling marijuana from Mexico and South America.