Kirkland-based cannabis payments company POSaBIT has ended its previously announced plans to acquire three businesses from Akerna Corp. (Nasdaq: KERN) for a total of $4 million.
POSaBIT on Friday said it had called off the deal, which was first announced in January. In a news release, POSaBIT said Akerna received a better offer from a third party, and the POSaBIT board and leadership agreed not to match the offer.
In the deal with Akerna, POSaBIT had planned to acquire MJ Platform, which focuses on midsize U.S. cannabis businesses, as well as a similar platform called Ample Organics, which is aimed at midsize Canadian cannabis businesses. POSaBIT was also going to acquire Leaf Data Systems, which offers compliance technology for governments. The companies had expected the deal to close in the second quarter.
"We are acquiring high-quality software assets at an attractive valuation,” Ryan Hamlin, CEO and co-founder of POSaBIT, said in a news release from January. “This acquisition will increase merchant locations that we serve to nearly 900 and create a meaningful opportunity to accelerate adoption of our fully compliant PIN debit payments solution."
POSaBIT was founded in 2015. The company helps cannabis dispensaries accept debit and ACH payments, which is challenging since cannabis is still federally illegal and a difficult segment for traditional financial institutions to serve. POSaBIT also provides a mobile point-of-sale system called Pocket POS.
The termination of the Akerna deal comes on the heels of a successful acquisition, as POSaBIT on Monday announced it had acquired Hypur, a Phoenix-based competitor, for $7.5 million in cash and equity.
Denver-based Akerna was founded in 2010. The company says it has tracked over $20 billion in cannabis sales since it launched. In a release, Akerna said the new acquisition proposal was unsolicited but didn't name the company.
"This decision reflects the board’s commitment to maximizing shareholder value and acting in the best interests of the company and its stakeholders," Akerna said in the release.
