Skip to main content

Eaze co-founder Keith McCarty raises $5M for his new B2B cannabis startup

Keith McCarty couldn’t stay out of the booming weed business for long.

The co-founder and former chief executive officer of the well-funded marijuana delivery startup Eaze has launched WAYV, a B2B cannabis logistics and compliance platform that delivers inventory to cannabis retailers. Today, the company is announcing its first round of funding, a $5 million seed round led by David Sacks at Craft Ventures. The round represents the former PayPal executive’s first investment in the cannabis technology sector.

Other investors in the round declined to be named.

McCarty and Sacks previously worked together at Yammer, a private social networking tool used by businesses created by Sacks in 2008. The company sold to Microsoft in 2012 for $1.2 billion, giving McCarty and several others enough cash to experiment. For McCarty, that meant exploring the hazy and uncharted territory that was marijuana delivery.

McCarty, however, mysteriously left Eaze right as the company gained significant traction. Neither the company nor McCarty ever explained the shake-up; McCarty was quickly replaced by another former Yammer employee, Jim Patterson, the founder and former CEO of Zinc. In a conversation with TechCrunch, McCarty didn’t clarify the nature of his exit.

He did say that the idea for WAYV came from observing the difficulties of cannabis supply chain logistics during his time at Eaze.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, WAYV connects licensed cannabis companies to licensed brands and provides next-day delivery of cannabis products — it’s essentially Eaze for the cannabis enterprise not the average cannabis consumer. The startup was founded last year and has so far delivered to retailers in California only.

As a second-time cannabis founder, McCarty said building WAYV has been a lot different than launching Eaze, which was one of the first big-name marijuana tech companies.

“Back in 2014, [Eaze was] one of the first to raise venture capital, it was kind of unheard of,” McCarty told TechCrunch. “Now, the majority of Americans favor legalization. For medical, it’s 90 percent and for adult recreational, it’s more than 60 percent. As we Americans continue to favor legalization and that stigma is removed, not just medical but also adult use, it’s going to draw attention and also investment.”

Venture capital investment in cannabis startups has continued to climb, most notably after the state of California voted to legalize recreational marijuana use in 2016. According to Crunchbase, $700 million has been funneled into the space since 2014.

“The industry is moving at such a fast cadence, it’s really exciting to be a part of,” McCarty added.

Metrc, whose tracing system helps regulators track cannabis from seed to sale, just raised $50 million, including from Tiger Global



from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2JmY4hf
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Axeleo Capital raises $51 million fund

Axeleo Capital has raised a $51 million fund (€45 million). Axeleo first started with an accelerator focused on enterprise startups. The firm is now all grown up with an acceleration program and a full-fledged VC fund. The accelerator is now called Axeleo Scale , while the fund is called Axeleo Capital . And it’s important to mention both parts of the business as they work hand in hand. Axeleo picks up around 10 startups per year and help them reach the Series A stage. If they’re doing well over the 12 to 18 months of the program, Axeleo funds those startups using its VC fund. Limited partners behind the company’s first fund include Bpifrance through the French Tech Accélération program, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Vinci Energies, Crédit Agricole, BNP Paribas, Caisse d’Épargne Rhône-Alpes as well as various business angels and family offices. The firm is also partnering with Hi Inov, the holding company of the Dentressangle family. Axeleo will take care of the early stage in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Puls raises $50 million for in-home technical support

A fund affiliated with the Singaporean government has a great interest in making sure that American consumers are getting the tech support they need. Temasek, the multi-billion-dollar investment fund associated with the government in Singapore, has led a $50 million round for  Puls Technologies, Inc. , a San Francisco-based company aiming to be the tech support for American homes and offices. Current investors Sequoia Capital, Red Dot Capital Partners, Samsung NEXT and Viola Ventures all participated in the new financing, alongside additional new investors Hanaco Ventures and Hamilton Lane. Founded only three years ago, Puls pitches a service that can match consumers with the appropriate technician in a little over an hour, any day of the week. The company has built a network of 2,500 technicians in the top 50 cities in the United States, and will provide same-day installation and repair of over 200 products. Some things the company’s technicians can service include smartphon...
Post a Comment
Read more