Next Green Wave's Nursery Botticelli(TM) Research & Development Program Begins

Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 22, 2019) - Next Green Wave Holdings Inc. (CSE: NGW) (OTCQB: NXGWF) ("Next Green Wave", "NGW" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce that is has begun the optimization phase of the strategic licensing agreement with Intrexon Corporation (NASDAQ: XON) ("Intrexon") to utilize Intrexon's Botticelli^™ next generation plant propagation platform to enable rapid production of Next Green Wave's proprietary cannabis cultivars for the California market. The collaborative work conducted at Next Green Wave's facilities will also accelerate its vision of becoming a world-class nursery.

California Market Plantelet Product Opportunity

In the U.S. market, legal cannabis revenue is projected to exceed $23 billion by 2022, with California estimated as representing around a third of that market. With estimated 57% compound annual growth rate and using 2 plants per Sq. Mt, we estimate a total market size of 50M plantlets in California by 2022. Cannabis cultivation is predominantly mediated through cloning, a process that is labor intensive, costly, and not sustainable due to the risk of disease susceptibility. In addition, plants derived from repeated cuttings lose vigor in performance.

Phase 1 - The Optimization Phase

As part of the first phase of the project, Next Green Wave will optimize Intrexon's Botticelli™ technology to Next Green Wave's specific cannabis cultivars. The Botticelli^™ platform is an advanced tissue culture technology designed to enable efficient propagation of plants while maintaining genetic purity and product performance. It offers potential for a more sustainable, scalable, and more economical solution than conventional cloning approaches with cannabis.

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This will offer the cannabis market several advantages:

• Rapid multiplication of proprietary lines in smaller areas,
• Reduction or potential elimination of mother rooms,
• Substantially decreased cutting load on the mother plants ensuring genetic purity and product performance,
• Reduced phytosanitary risk and superior product performance,
• A more integrated production system and shorter time to vegetation room; ex., reduction or elimination for vegetative acclimatization step, and
• Capital efficiencies.

Upcoming Key Milestones in 2019

Next Green Wave will work to achieve the following;

• Utilize Next Green Wave's hemp CBD strains as a proxy to optimize standard operating procedure (SOP)
• Complete tissue culture lab build out and become operational at Next Green Wave's 3,240 sq. ft Site C facility.
• Optimize Botticelli™ SOP to Next Green Wave THC cultivars ready for scale-up production and commercialization.

"This program enables Next Green Wave to improve its library of award-winning premium genetics through a next-generation tissue culture platform, Botticelli™, and serves two vital functions for our company," stated Mike Jennings, COO at Next Green Wave. "First, it is step toward ensuring that all of our flowering facilities are filled with the highest quality of nursery stock resulting in higher yields and overall cannabinoid content than traditional clones. Second, it offers the potential that our nursery will have state of the art top quality nursery stock to sell to other commercial growers, providing a long-term pathway to increase market share and revenue on a state wide scale."

On behalf of the Board,

Leigh Hughes
CEO and Executive Chairman, Next Green Wave Holdings Inc.

About Next Green Wave

Next Green Wave is a vertically integrated seed-to-consumer premium medicinal and recreational cannabis company operating in California. Construction of the company's first state of the art indoor facility (35,000sf) is complete and nearing production with future plans for expansion on its remaining 15 acres of cannabis zoned land. NGW has acquired a seed library of over 120 strains which includes several award-winning genetics. Recently acquired SDC Ventures and its 8 brands and 45 products which will accelerate NGW to revenue in 2019 and complement NGW's branded products. The partnership with OMG will provide NGW access to distribution through the licensing of our brands through Colombia. To find out more visit us at www.nextgreenwave.com or follow us on Twitter at @nextgreenwave, on Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Trademarks

Intrexon and Botticelli are trademarks of Intrexon and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Next Green Wave Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements that are not historical facts, including without limitation, statements regarding future estimates, plans, programs, forecasts, projections, objectives, assumptions, expectations or beliefs of future performance, are "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "estimates", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, events or developments to be materially different from any future results, events or developments expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the risk factors included in the preliminary prospectus, including without limitation dependence on obtaining and maintaining regulatory approvals, including acquiring and renewing state, local or other licenses and any inability to obtain all necessary governmental approvals licenses and permits to complete construction of its proposed facilities in a timely manner; engaging in activities which currently are illegal under US federal law and the uncertainty of existing protection from U.S. federal or other prosecution; regulatory or political change such as changes in applicable laws and regulations, including U.S. state-law legalization, particularly in California, due to inconsistent public opinion, perception of the medical-use and adult-use marijuana industry, bureaucratic delays or inefficiencies or any other reasons; any other factors or developments which may hinder market growth; NGW's limited operating history and lack of historical profits; reliance on management; NGW's requirements for additional financing, and the effect of capital market conditions and other factors on capital availability; competition, including from more established or better financed competitors; and the need to secure and maintain corporate alliances and partnerships, including with customers and suppliers. Readers are encouraged to the review the section titled "Risk Factors" in NGW's preliminary prospectus. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Although NGW has attempted to identify important risk factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other risk factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements. NGW no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, even if new information becomes available as a result of future events, new information or for any other reason except as required by law.

For more information regarding Next Green Wave, contact:

Caroline Klukowski
VP Corp. Development
Tel: +1 (778) 589-2848
IR@nextgreenwave.com

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