Sorry. The headline just jumped to mind so I had to write this up really quickly. If only to take credit for the bad pun — but distinctly Oregon — headline. (And with all due respect to Dutch Bros.) Anyway… according to Techcrunch, Bend based and brother founded Dutchie just raised a Series A round for their ecommerce platform designed to serve cannabis dispensaries.
Dutchie, a two-year-old, 36-person, Bend, Ore.-based startup whose software is used by a growing number of cannabis dispensaries that pay the startup a monthly subscription fee to create and maintain their websites, as well as to accept orders and track what needs to be ready for pickup.…
Dutchie says it’s now being used by 450 dispensaries across 18 states and that it’s seeing $140 million in gross merchandise volume. The company also just locked down $15 million in Series A funding led by Gron Ventures, a new cannabis-focused venture fund with at least $117 million to invest. Other participants in the round include earlier backers Casa Verde Capital, Thirty Five Ventures (founded by NBA star Kevin Durant and sports agent Rich Kleiman), Sinai Ventures and individual investors, including Shutterstock founder and CEO Jon Oringer.
I also love how this news hits upon something that speaks to the culture of the Oregon startup community. A place where entrepreneurs build products designed specifically to help other entrepreneurs. It’s worked in tech. So it stands to reason that it would work in other industries.
For more information, read “These brothers just raised $15 million for their startup, Dutchie, a kind of Shopify for cannabis dispensaries.”
