The Venture Codex

Participated · Equity · Feb 2019

Wurk provides a Human Capital Management platform for cannabis companies to manage payroll, human resources, timekeeping, scheduling and tax compliance. The platform is designed to minimize compliance risks in the cannabis regulatory environment and incorporates expertise and partnerships to provide guidance on 280E tax law, accounting and banking. Wurk says its platform is designed to scale nationally while incorporating the local laws and regulations unique to individual states. The company announced it raised $11M in funding and plans to use the capital to enhance the client experience and expand its cannabis HCM platform. Planned product expansions include the launch of managed services and the implementation of an analytics engine to provide data and benchmarking for the cannabis industry. Leadership is led by founder and CEO Keegan Peterson. Wurk offers software-as-a-service that handles background checks, employee scheduling, benefits, training, payroll, and regulatory reporting specific to cannabis businesses. The company has built relationships with state banks and credit unions and a network of financial-services partners to help clients process payroll in an industry with limited banking access. Wurk’s product addresses an extra layer of compliance imposed by state marijuana divisions in addition to standard Department of Labor rules. The startup graduated from the Canopy accelerator in Boulder and is led by CEO Keegan Peterson. Wurk raised a $1 million seed round and plans to deploy the funding primarily for sales and marketing. The company also intends to engage regulators as legalization debates advance at state and federal levels.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2017

springbig provides CRM programs and a custom cannabis loyalty platform that capture key customer data, integrate with dispensary POS systems, and deliver targeted, personalized SMS and MMS marketing. The platform is embedded with advanced marketing tools to retain customers and enable compliant communications with cannabis consumers. Launched in June 2020, the company’s new marketing platform allows brands to reach consumers directly through targeted MMS and SMS messages while remaining compliant. springbig is used by more than 1,400 retailers across the U.S. and Canada, and twelve national and local brands including Pax Labs and Coda Signature have signed up for the new service. The company intends to use recent funding to accelerate platform growth and expand throughout the U.S. and Canada. springbig was founded in 2017 by CEO Jeffrey Harris and is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. springbig provides customer-loyalty and communications solutions for dispensaries and cannabis retailers, featuring SMS, loyalty marketing, and tools to track ROI in real time. Led by Jeff Harris, the company serves customers across the United States. It closed a $3.2M funding round that brings total capital raised to $6.3M. The company intends to use the proceeds to add staff in technology development, product management, sales and support, finance and analytics. springbig plans to accelerate platform enhancements and expand its offering to additional channels of distribution within the cannabis industry.

Participated · Seed · Nov 2014

Eaze Inc. announced a relaunch of multi-state cannabis operations after acquiring select assets from Eaze Technologies Inc. The company operates retail stores, scheduled delivery services, and private-label product lines and will reopen 70 locations across California, Colorado, Florida, and Michigan (57 retail stores, 11 delivery hubs, two production facilities). Leadership under Cory Azzalino plans to expand retail and delivery capacity, scale production (including doubling Florida flowering canopy from 32,000 to 64,000 square feet), and hire more than 1,000 operational employees. Eaze said it has a 10-year operating history through Eaze Technologies Inc., which completed over $1 billion in deliveries. The company will allocate the new funding to strengthen supply chain and customer experience, support brand and product innovation at Green Dragon locations, and build new brand partnerships and market-specific offerings. Eaze emphasized minimizing disruption for customers, patients, and vendors during the operational transition. Eaze operates an online marketplace that connects adult consumers with licensed cannabis retailers and products across California. The company is pursuing a verticalization and brand strategy, planning to launch its own consumer brands in partnership with local licensees while continuing to support independent licensed retailers. In January Eaze acquired DionyMed Brand’s rights to retail licensee Hometown Heart depots in Oakland and San Francisco and now oversees HTH’s day-to-day operations. The company reported strong 2019 growth, including a 97% increase in new sign-ups, 74% increase in first-time deliveries, and 71% increase in overall deliveries. Eaze says it has supported over five million legal deliveries, has 600,000 registered customers, and features more than 100 licensed brands through its retail network. The company also announced promotions of Megan Miller to COO and John Curtis to CFO as it pursues a more sustainable and profitable business model. Eaze operates an online marketplace that historically connected customers with third‑party dispensaries and handled delivery of cannabis products. It has completed more than 5 million deliveries, served 600,000 customers, and reports an average transaction value of $85. To date Eaze has expanded beyond California only into Oregon and says it aims to add five more states this year and another three in 2021. Facing thin margins, payment‑processing constraints, lawsuits and late vendor payments, Eaze is pivoting to “verticalization” — sourcing and branding its own products and operating owned delivery depots to increase margins. The company is acquiring assets from bankrupt Canadian firm Dionymed, including Oakland dispensary Hometown Heart, which it plans to operate as its first owned depot. Eaze projects $204 million in revenue on $300 million of gross transactions and says its take per sale could rise from $9.04 to $18.31 with private‑label products and depot control. Its cash reserves are reportedly depleted: the startup laid off about 30 people last summer, closed a $15 million bridge to stay afloat, and faces the risk of missing payroll or having services like AWS shut down. Eaze operates a proprietary software platform that connects California medical‑marijuana patients with local dispensaries and arranges delivery to customers' doors. The company is moving into recreational marijuana delivery ahead of California's planned issuance of recreational licenses beginning in 2018, expecting a new revenue stream. Eaze reports a 300 percent year‑over‑year increase in gross sales but has been burning at least $1 million in cash per month. It previously raised $24.5 million in venture capital and has spent that capital largely on aggressive marketing and growth tactics. New CEO Jim Patterson, who took over in December 2016, frames the strategy as investing heavily now to capture a large future market. The company had roughly 80 employees at the time of reporting. Eaze is an on-demand platform that lets medical marijuana patients order cannabis for delivery and obtain a medical weed card in California over the phone. Since launching in July 2014, the company says it's available in nearly 100 California cities (including about 20 Bay Area cities) and has delivered to more than 200,000 people. Eaze operates a data-driven platform designed to streamline ordering and dispensary operations. It plans to hire additional staff, expand into new markets as more states legalize marijuana, and build features to recommend strains to users. Eaze aims to establish itself as a recognized delivery brand inside and outside California to capture growth in a market projected to expand significantly.

Led · Seed · Jun 2014

CannaBuild provides a cloud-based platform that enables dispensary operations to serve customers from anywhere on any device. The app lets users initiate sessions (anonymously if desired) with budtenders based on symptoms and strains and supports traditional chat, text, and video chat. Based on budtender advice, users can reserve products for in-store pickup at their desired time. The company aims to enhance the customer experience in cannabis by building this online budtending experience. CannaBuild is led by co-founders Zach Marburger (CEO) and Timothy Skaggs (CTO) and has assembled an advisory team of cannabis and self-service software veterans. The company raised seed funding to support development and go-to-market efforts.

Led · Seed · Feb 2014

MassRoots is a private social network serving the legalized cannabis community, offering a semi-anonymous environment for users to share cannabis-related experiences, connect with other consumers, and discover cannabis content. Since launching in July 2013, the app has grown rapidly, reporting 80,000 monthly active users, 14 million interactions, and more than 50,000 daily app opens. The platform emphasizes user privacy by not requiring personally identifiable information and targets users who prefer not to post cannabis activity on mainstream networks. MassRoots positions itself as a marketing and distribution channel for legalized cannabis and ancillary products, aiming to integrate mobile technology with the growing legalized cannabis industry. The company is building a location-based service to connect users with the cannabis community around them. Management describes the network as the premier digital hub for legalized cannabis users. MassRoots is an app-based social network dedicated to the medical cannabis community, launched in July 2013 and co-founded by Isaac Dietrich. The platform centers on high-quality cannabis content and aims to connect marijuana consumers while supporting the legalization movement. It does not require a user’s name, email or phone number to join, providing privacy and anonymity. The company says it seeks to build a marketing and distribution channel for legal cannabis and to empower the legalization movement. MassRoots closed $150K in seed funding from members of the ArcView Group and is using the funds for user adoption. The company is continuing to raise capital.