The Denver-based cannabis transportation company Green Parcel Service announced its partnership Tuesday with LeafLink, a national wholesale marketplace for the cannabis sector.
LeafLink launched its full-service platform in Colorado this month, meaning cannabis retailers in the state now have access to the company’s logistics and payment tools. Leaflink helps retailers create orders, fulfill them, handle transportation and process payments.
When preparing to launch in Colorado, LeafLink chose Green Parcel Service to perform its deliveries in the state and “complete the experience” for customers, said Pat Duddy, founder and CEO of Green Parcel Service.
Duddy’s company has 30 employees who drive 50 routes throughout Colorado on a weekly basis, and they’ve completed 250,000 deliveries since Green Parcel Service was founded in 2015. They pick up cannabis from cultivation facilities and manufacturers and deliver the shipments to more than 700 marijuana dispensaries across the state.
The partnership has the potential to help Green Parcel Service expand its services to other states, Duddy said.
“We’re really excited about this LeafLink partnership,” Duddy told Colorado Inno. “Our goal here is to prove the concept, get it rockin’ and rollin’ in Colorado, and then move down to another state and try and continue to build our partnership and grow this thing into other states.”
Colorado joined five other states where LeafLink’s full-service platform is already available, including California, Oregon, Massachusetts, Michigan and Missouri.
Back in 2016, Colorado was the first state where LeafLink launched its marketplace, which connects cannabis manufacturers with dispensaries. Since that launch, LeafLink has processed 750,000 orders in the state, said Ryan Smith, the company co-founder and CEO.
Adding transportation services in Colorado was the “last missing piece” for its operations in the state, Smith said.
Nationwide, LeafLink works with 11,000 cannabis companies in 30 states and has processed about $5 billion in orders. The company employs 300 people and has raised $130 million in capital.
Smith said his goal is to make the cannabis industry into a model for supply chain efficiency.
“We want more legacy verticals to think to themselves, ‘You know what we want to be? We want to look like the cannabis space,” Smith said. “That’s what we’re all creating together here and working so hard to achieve.”
