Meet Dutchie The Shopify Wannabe Of Cannabis скачать в хорошем качестве

Meet Dutchie The Shopify Wannabe Of Cannabis

On October 1, 2015—the first day of recreational cannabis legalization in Bend, Oregon—Ross Lipson was waiting on an hour-long line to buy a little weed. A few years earlier, he had sold the online food ordering business he had cofounded after dropping out of college for an estimated $30 million. Since then, the twentysomething entrepreneur spent his days snowboarding, during what he describes as his “sabbatical” from working for a living. But before he got to that cash register, a new business idea hit Lipson like a bong rip: He should start a company that helps dispensaries take orders online.“I really feel like I was the right person, at the right place, at the right time,” says Lipson (above, left), now 34. “It was the first day of legalization in Oregon, the first hour, I'm standing in line and the light bulb goes off in my head which is online ordering for cannabis. And you know I'm the right person to do that as I have tons of experience over almost a decade in the restaurant space.”He immediately called his older brother, Zach (above, right), who was in the process of selling his startup RepPro, an online tool for financial advisors, to see if his idea was a good one—or a cannabis-inspired entrepreneurial delusion. “He quickly said, ‘It's a no-brainer, you have to do it,’” Ross Lipson recalls. By July 2017, the brothers had launched Bend-based Dutchie as an e-commerce software company that helps dispensaries put their menus online so customers can order flower, edibles or vapes with a few taps on their smartphone for pick-up—delivery is not an option. It’s a model that’s essentially a combination of Shopify and Seamless, but for pot. The first dispensary to use Dutchie’s software was the same one where Lipson had his eureka moment, and within months, 50 Oregon dispensaries had signed up for the service. Excited by a way to invest in the cannabis industry—without directly investing in a still federally illegal drug—investors jumped in. Snoop Dogg’s venture firm, Casa Verde Capital, led a $3 million seed round in 2018. Two years later, Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital, NBA star Kevin Durant’s fund, and billionaire and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz bought in. In March 2021, Dutchie raised $200 million in a Series C, led by Tiger Global, which has backed companies such as Peloton, Roblox, Spotify and Juul. The investment made Dutchie a cannabis unicorn, valued at $1.7 billion. Seven months later, in mid-October, Dutchie announced a new $350-million financing round, led by billionaire Daniel Sundheim’s D1 Capital Partners at a $3.8 billion valuation. It’s all based on potential. All told, Forbes estimates that Dutchie generated around $5 million in revenue in 2020 and around $45 million in 2021. Lipson would not comment on his company’s revenue. Dutchie sells e-commerce and point-of-sale software to dispensaries that helps them take online orders, manage inventory and state law compliance, and run their cash registers. All data is taken from the source: http://forbes.com Article Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyako... #dutchie #technews #bbcworldnewstoday #newsworldabc #newstodayheadlines #newstodaylocal #