Shahar YamayWhile longtime cannabis operators have grown particularly numb to ancillary business pitches, CEO Shahar Yamay has found considerable traction for his family-owned pre-roll automation company Hefestus USA. He credits the success to his company’s dedication to the market and its ability to fully automate any trend from mini joints to blunts and even infused pre-rolls.
“I think the fact that we can deal with infusion got us into a lot of places, because when you think about it, it’s almost mud that you need to put into paper,” Yamay says.
Hefestus USA has installed machines with some of the country’s biggest cannabis growers, including Sparc, Seed & Smith, Schwazze, Stiiizy, Jar Cannabis Co., Lowell Farm Services and Standard Wellness, among others. In total, the company has more than 150 installs at farms across the country with many more pending.
“I think reputation is everything in this small ecosystem, especially among decision makers,” Yamay says. “So, we’re not just growing; we are growing smartly. We’re not going to promise something we cannot fulfill in lead time or the way we service it.”
Hefestus was originally founded in Israel by Yamay’s father in 1993. Yamay spent nearly all of his life watching his father design and build machines for other industries. Yamay was working in marketing for the company when his dad proposed a move into cannabis automation in 2022, with Yamay as CEO for Hefestus USA.
Yamay describes his father as “an old-school engineer.”
“He knows everything important to talk about in engineering,” he says, “and I think the fact that we’re doing it together is something that I’m very proud of.”