Flourish, an Atlanta-based supply chain management startup that helps cannabis companies monitor logistics, has raised $2.1 million in a seed round led by 7thirty Opportunity Fund.
The funding will primarily be used for R&D, sales and marketing and hiring across the company, according to founder and CEO Colton Griffin.
"We’re making some significant investments in additional analytics on top of our application that our customers are very happy and hungry for," he said.
The company has hired at least seven people since closing the round, and consists of 25-30 employees in seven states, including Georgia, California and Oregon.
"I think that we’ve seen a lot of great traction," Griffin said. "We’ve seen 10x in growth last year, and we’ve already doubled this year from a revenue perspective so we’re on a very fast pace of success … I’m super excited to continue with the team in Atlanta and grow this team out."
New and existing investors participated in the round. The new funding brings Flourish's total amount raised to $3.4 million since launching the platform in 2017. Micah Tapman, 7thirty's managing partner, will join the Flourish board of directors as part of the deal.
"Not only was it a market that was rapidly about to expand but it was vastly underserved by basic software to run the day-to-day operations."
Flourish helps cannabis clients manage their inventory, from seed-to-sale, and monitor analytics over their operation, manufacturing, distribution, retail and plant sale. The software was designed to comply with each state mandating tracking requirements where it is legal to sell and produce cannabis, Griffin said.
At the beginning stages of Flourish in 2016, the company was focused on a supply chain analytics platform before pivoting to the cannabis industry after Griffin and company leaders took a trip out to California and noticed how much marijuana business owners needed a solution to keep them compliant with regulatory laws.
"Not only was it a market that was rapidly about to expand but it was vastly underserved by basic software to run the day-to-day operations," he said. "The software not only helps them run the operations but helps them stay in business by staying compliant with the [law]. So we felt like our background in supply chain ... we felt like it was a a good decision to be the technology software provider in the industry."
Clients of Flourish include Atlanta's rising cannabis startup Surterra Wellness, Dabblicious, California Cannabis Factory, Paradise Wellness, OutCo and Humboldt Sun Growers Guild.
"I don’t think we’d have the product we have now if we didn’t have a really solid set of early customers that appreciated the value of technology and software to run the business and have ambitions to grow and leverage data and the tools we have," Griffin said.
When asked how Flourish views the slow but steady progress of introducing medical marijuana in Georgia, Griffin said he and his team are excited to have cannabis in our backyard.
"By early next year, we should have licenses awarded," he said. " By early next fall, products should be available to patients that have access to legal cannabis. It’s very much in motion. We’re just trying to keep up with Florida, [which has] a very robust medical cannabis industry."
