Having just closed out a pot-stock fuelled quarter, Canaccord Genuity Chief Executive Officer Dan Daviau is seeing renewed opportunities in one of the investment bank’s traditional stomping grounds. In an interview on BNN, Daviau said conditions are ripening up for a resurgence in the junior mining industry, and he has no intention of missing out.

“We’re starting to see interest in small-cap gold companies, because people are worried about the volatility of other sectors, and gold is a natural hedge,” he said on Wednesday. “You haven’t seen it in the gold price yet, but you can clearly see it in the nature of the activity starting to brew up.”

While Daviau thinks Canaccord could be a big benefactor from financing activity in the gold space, the most recent quarter was dominated by its work in the nascent cannabis and cryptocurrency industries. The company booked record third-quarter revenue of $309.4 million, a 48.7 per cent increase from a year ago, and profit climbed to a seven-year high.

During the quarter, Canaccord led or co-led 59 transactions, raising about $1.8 billion for clients. Among the significant deals were $184 million raised in two financings for Aurora Cannabis (ACB.TO), $69 million for venture-listed Hydropothecary (THCX.V), and $43.9 million for Vancouver-based Global Blockchain Technologies (CBS.V).

But Canaccord’s foray into new and untested industries hasn’t been without its stumbling blocks. The investment bank pulled out as an underwriter for Alex Tapscott’s NextBlock Global late last year, after it was discovered the blockchain company falsely claimed a number of high-profile tech investors were advising the firm.

Daviau said the disclosure mishap stemmed from what Tapscott pitched private investors on long before he sought Canaccord’s help to bring the company to public markets, which ultimately never happened.

“The problem is, some of these companies go out and raise money privately before we ever see them, they make representations in their private raises that we’re not involved in,” Daviau said.

“What comes back and bites everybody later on is when you go to do a public deal, they reference what happened in the private deal, where you didn’t have a chance to do that diligence. You don’t know what they said in the private deal, and that’s in fact what happened [with NextBlock.]”

Canaccord was one of the early movers into the Canadian cannabis space, along with Eight Capital. The initial players dove into the sector while the nation’s largest lenders shied away amid legal concerns. Only recently have some of the Big Five banks dipped their toes into the water, with BMO and CIBC disclosing they’ve helped finance marijuana companies.

Though the company’s recent success can be tied to marijuana stocks, Daviau said Canaccord will remain nimble and make itself available to whichever sector shows the most promising appetite for financing.

“Each three months or six months, a new sector emerges that’s very active looking for entrepreneurial money,” he said. “We’re the dominant independent [investment bank]; we tend to finance those sectors very early.”

The growth in cannabis has offered a welcome respite for Canada’s smaller boutique investment banks, which were ravaged by the multi-year weakness in commodity prices and subsequent drop off in new issuances by energy companies. While Daviau doesn’t think the junior exploration and production companies will come calling in droves any time soon, he said he won’t turn the sector away if there’s sufficient appetite.  

“At the end of the day, we’re an arms supplier. When people want oil stocks, we’ll go out and speak with the companies that want to raise that money.”