NEW YORK, Sept. 21, 2021 – PRESS RELEASE – Dispense, a leading digital dispensary management platform, announced the completion of its $2 million seed funding. The round of investment is led by NextView Ventures with NextView co-founder, Lee Hower, joining the Dispense board. Leading cannabis VC's Poseidon Asset Management and Achari Ventures participated, along with Arrive, a Roc Nation company, and Wayne Chang.

Dispense is one of the fastest growing software companies in the cannabis space. The platform is currently used by dispensaries in five states, including Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Since its beta launch in August 2020, Dispense has processed over 1.5 million orders, with an order value of over $200 million with only two employees. Co-founders Kyla Moore and Tim Officer plan to use the funding to hire top talent, continue developing and enhancing their product, and scale their sales and marketing efforts.

Prior to launching Dispense, Moore and Officer founded Tablelist and TablelistPro, an online ticketing, reservations and venue management software for nightlife and events. When nightlife and in-person events stopped due to the pandemic, the team pivoted and repurposed the software to help cannabis dispensaries manage their customer purchases and pick-ups.

"What makes Dispense unique is that our software is built to empower our dispensary partners, giving them simple-to-use tools to not only take online orders but to build and maintain direct customer relationships, optimize their sales, and streamline their operations," said Moore, who serves as the company’s CEO. "This new funding will allow us to grow our team, expand into more states and continue to build features that align with the needs of the dispensaries and their customers."

Dispense differentiates itself from other online dispensary management platforms by giving retailers 100% ownership of their customer data, online orders and order details. Dispense gives business owners the tools to connect, build, and nurture relationships to create loyal and lasting customers. The platform is used by some of the country's top dispensaries, including Ascend Wellness, a leading retailer in the Midwest and East Coast.

"Our experience using Dispense so far has been great," Ascend Wellness founder and CEO Abner Kurtin said. "Their hospitality and customer-centric approach to building the software has made it both intuitive and easy to use. Dispense e-commerce and order management software is an important part of our customer service experience at Ascend."

"We are very pleased to have the opportunity to work with Kyla Moore and Tim Officer at Dispense," said Hower, who’s also a partner at NextView Ventures. "The growth they've achieved in the last year is astounding. I've worked with many early-stage software startups in my career, and Dispense's software really is top-notch. We see tremendous opportunity to work with Dispense to help drive the expansion of their unique, customer-centric platform that is already making waves at some of the biggest dispensaries in the industry."

"We are excited to be both an investor in Dispense and a strategic partner," said Emily Paxhia, co-founder and management partner at Poseidon. "Their platform provides much-needed solutions to the growing cannabis retail sector, and their focus on the customer experience along with their refined software will help them scale across the cannabis industry while making retailers' lives easier and the customers' experiences more enjoyable."

As cash pertains to cannabis, the supermajority consensus in the U.S. House of Representatives is that federal regulators should not penalize depository institutions for providing banking services to legitimate cannabis-related businesses.

That consensus was unveiled during a 321-101 vote in April, when the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act cruised to bipartisan passage in the lower chamber, which has indicated time, and time again, that the federal government has a responsibility to provide safe harbor to financial institutions servicing the industry.

But that was a standalone bill, which has yet to make progress in the Senate.

The question on Sept. 21 in the House was whether SAFE Banking should be attached as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) spending package for fiscal 2022.

While Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., supported SAFE Banking as a standalone bill five months ago, he said Tuesday night it had no business hitching a ride with NDAA. Rogers is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, which works hand in hand with NDAA.

“This is a fine piece of legislation in a standalone fashion,” Rogers said. “In fact, I voted for the gentleman’s standalone bill. I think what he’s trying to accomplish is admirable and should be accomplished, but not in the National Defense Authorization Act.”

Majority opinion steered from Rogers opposition, as SAFE Banking passed by a voice vote as the first amendment to be added to the NDAA package. It marks the fifth time the act has passed in the House.

In the last Congress, the lower chamber overwhelmingly passed a standalone version of SAFE Banking in 2019, and then House members passed the measure two more times as part of federal coronavirus relief bills in 2020. But the legislation stalled, in part because former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., never acted on calendaring it for floor debate in the upper chamber.

Office of the Clerk, U.S. House

In his opening remarks Tuesday as the chief author of the bill, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., offered the amendment as the identical version of the standalone act that passed in April.

“This will strengthen the security of our financial system in our country by keeping bad actors like foreign cartels out of the cannabis industry,” he said. “But most importantly, this amendment will reduce the risk of violent crime in our communities. By dealing in all cash, these businesses and their employees become targets for robbery, assaults, burglaries and more.”

Perlmutter said getting cash off the streets would improve safety in communities. In his home state, Perlmutter referenced Travis Mason, a 24-year-old husband and father of three when he was working as a security guard and killed during a 2016 robbery attempt at Green Heart dispensary in Aurora. Mason was a Marine veteran.

After Rogers said language in SAFE Banking is not related to NDAA, Perlmutter reminded him that the matter was deemed germane by a parliamentarian.

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, said the reason the parliamentarian ruled SAFE Banking was germane was because cartels control much of the drug trade in the United States.

“And while most states have made some legal form for marijuana, the cartels still dominate the market,” Davidson said.

Particularly in Southern California, sheriff’s departments from San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties have shed some light on the extend of the illicit market during recent eradication operations. A $1.2-billion cannabis seizure in July that resulted in 131 arrests was tied to Mexican drug trafficking organizations as well as Chinese and Armenian organized crime groups, according to LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva. 

Davidson continued during Tuesday night’s floor session and said, “For too long in America, we’ve had a standard that said, well, you’re not going to bank ‘these people,’ are you? And who ‘these people’ are has changed. This is preventing us from stopping the cartels.”

In a letter to Senate and House leadership, cannabis advocacy organization NORML maintained that NDAA is an appropriate vehicle for SAFE Banking provisions, stating nearly one in four veterans report consuming cannabis, mostly for its therapeutic effects.

Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., also rose in support of the amendment Tuesday, calling it a common-sense measure.

“Cannabis customers and businesses are law-abiding citizens and entities, yet they have to pay their employees, their bills and their federal taxes with cash,” he said. “It just does not make sense.”

In his closing remarks, Perlmutter reiterated why he believes SAFE Banking is an applicative amendment, calling it a “public safety and national security matter very germane to the issues at hand.”

While SAFE Banking has gained notoriety in the House, it has yet to replicate that reputation in the Senate. Although, Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Steve Daines, R-Mont., are leading the charge as primary sponsors of the bill in the upper chamber, where the legislation was introduced in March and has 39 co-sponsors.

About an hour before Tuesday’s NDAA amendment session in the House, Curaleaf founder and Executive Chairman Boris Jordan told 500-plus listeners during a social media cannabis townhall to remain patient on reform efforts.

“There’s going to be another shot at this in the Senate, in terms of getting the right aspects of the bill,” Jordan said. “I can tell you that Schumer’s people, if you look at their bill in terms of the safe banking element of it, they get it. All the necessary issues are there. So, this is not going to look the way it is now.”

The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA), a broader reform effort that aims to end federal prohibition, was introduced in its draft form in July by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. Industry organizations sent feedback to the Senate trio during the following weeks, and the act has yet to be formally introduced.

When CAOA was first introduced, Booker vowed to block SAFE Banking as a standalone without broader reform but later backtracked from that statement and expressed support.

During the townhall, Jordan said he believes Schumer will push SAFE Banking to the side until first giving CAOA a shot at getting passed.

“My understanding is that he’s still going to want to try to get the wider bill, but he fully understands that he’s going to have to pass something, and it’s going to have to happen before April, because after that … we go into funding season with reelections and primaries and all that kind of stuff,” Jordan said. “So, I think they’re going to try to get it through, and I think SAFE in a wider format will get through. But I think it’s probably going to get attached to another vehicle.”

While Jordan doesn’t forecast SAFE Banking getting signed into law through an amendment to the NDAA package, he said “miracles” do happen.

Amazon has publicized its continued support to refine the nation’s cannabis policy.

In a recent press release, the organization declared its support for the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA), a federal draft bill that would end cannabis prohibition, as it “makes a number of important changes” the company stands by.

RELATED: Industry Experts, Stakeholders Offer Their Takes on Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act

"First, we support removing cannabis from the Controlled Substance Act,” said Brian Huseman, Amazon vice president of public policy. “Doing so will open significant new economic opportunities for millions of capable individuals while beginning to restore some of the damage done to highly affected communities.”

Huseman said the company believes Congress should eradicate non-violent cannabis convictions and grant resentencing for individuals currently convicted on such charges. 

"For far too long, criminal marijuana provisions have been unequally enforced upon people of color, perpetuating over-incarceration, poverty, health conditions and other barriers to economic opportunity,” Huseman said. “We believe it’s necessary to expunge these crimes that our society has borne on the shoulders of communities of color. And as the nation’s second-largest employer, we support expungement to ensure that all capable individuals have a fair opportunity to seek and secure employment wherever they choose. Finally, we support community reinvestment grants, which can have a positive impact in pursuit of social justice.”

In June, the company announced its support of the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act of 2021. Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon's worldwide consumer business, said the company would begin to exclude cannabis from its pre-employment drug screening program for positions not regulated by the Department of Transportation.

RELATED: Amazon To Eliminate Marijuana Testing, Supports MORE Act

While the company has begun to remove pre-employment cannabis screenings, it has also decided to “reinstate employment eligibility of both former employees terminated due to receiving a non-negative Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) result during random drug tests, as well as applicants that were deferred for the same reason during standard pre-employment screenings.”

"We are proud to largely end pre-employment testing of marijuana as a condition of employment,” Huseman said. “And we are enthused by the notable momentum in the country toward recognizing that today’s status quo is unfair and untenable. We are eager to work with you to secure passage of this legislation.”