🎙️ Leaf Trade, President & Chief Revenue Officer, Michael Piermont

Chicago-based Leaf Trade is a wholesale cannabis buying and selling platform that streamlines and simplifies the industry’s supply chain and business operations. The company has raise $25M to date.

Background. Michael Piermont is the President and Chief Revenue Officer of Leaf Trade. In his role, Michael oversees company strategy, sales, customer success, and marketing. Prior to joining Leaf Trade, Michael held leadership roles at CareerBuilder, Fooda, ECOFIT, Fanchest, and amSTATZ, the latter two of which he co-founded and helped exit.

Company Overview. Founded in 2016, Leaf Trade is a wholesale cannabis buying and selling platform that streamlines and simplifies the industry’s supply chain and business operations. The Company supports cultivators throughout the entire wholesale selling process through their cannabis marketplace—connecting cultivators and dispensaries via flexible integrations, amplifying brands through bespoke advertising opportunities, supporting inventory management, and robust advanced analytics. Leaf Trade sees $1B+ in annualized net GMV. The Company also offers Leaf Pay, which simplifies the cannabis payment process making payments quicker and easier to complete—allowing companies to receive and send payments via ACH directly within Leaf Trade. Leaf Trade is also trying to be the lowest cost—designed to be more cost-competitive than credit card or wire payments, and easier to manage and track than check or cash invoices.

KPIs.

• GMVs. $1B+ GMVs of transactions that are done on the platform and how many orders it took to get there.

• Average Revenue Per Order (ARPO). ARPO go up as they’re launching new services and value of platform is going up.

• New Sellers. Acquiring new customers as they enter new markets.

• Growth Rate of New Customers. Ensuring that new customers on the platform is able to grow their business on the Leaf Trade platform.

Funding. Leaf Trade has raised ~$25M to date.

• Seed (November 2019). The company raised $4.5M in a deal co-led by Hyde Park Angels and Duke Software Investments. Landis Capital, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Chingona Ventures, V. Gastevich Investments, and Slojo Investments also participated in the round.

• Series A (March 2021). The company raised $5.5M in a deal led by Artemis Growth Partners. Hyde Park Angels, V. Gastevich Investments, and other undisclosed investors also participated in the round.

• Series B (July 2022). The company raised ~$15M from Vitamin Capital (SPINS President & CIO), Artemis Growth Partners and Measure 8 Venture Partners.

Competitive Landscape. Leaf Trade competes with other Wholesale Cannabis Platform, which includes LeafLink, Nabis, Apex Trading, Canntrade, Confident Cannabis, and GrowFlow (acquired by Dama in January 2022). The Company is not shy about commenting on how it differs from competitors:

The move into Arizona’s cannabis market comes at a time when many of Leaf Trade’s new clients say they were disappointed and underserved by Leaf Trade’s competitors, who are unable to provide the same level of integrative B2B solutions.

Leaf Trade is among the largest national players in its category and is definitively the most competitively positioned player in the markets in which the company operates.

Customers. Leaf Trade is used by cultivators and retailers. MSO customers include CuraLeaf, Verano, GTI, Columbia Care, Holistic Industries, Goodness Growth, Acreage and Jushi. Other customers include Lion Labs, Better Daze, aerīz, Abundant Organics, Item Nine Labs. Leaf Trade has a national partnership with Curaleaf, which has helped to streamline their wholesale operations, according to Patrick Larkin, SVP Wholesale, Curaleaf.

Holistic uses Leaf Trade to manage its wholesale operations in 6 markets including MA, CA, DC, MD, PA, and MI. They also utilize their integration with Leaf Logix to boost its efficiencies in the Michigan market. — John Brown, CTO, Holistic

Other.

• Revenue Projections. In a June 2021 interview with New Cannabis Ventures, Leaf Trade mentioned it was targeting $3-5M in revenue for 2021 and $15-20M for 2022. Those revenue projections were likley revsied sometime this year with the challenges that the Cannabis industry has faced.

• CFO. Brian Ward (ex-CFO at Verano) joined Leaf Trade in April 2022 as CFO. Ward previously served as the CFO of Verano.

• Expansion. The company wants to enter states where it could carve out a stong position. This year, Leaf Trade entered Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, & Michigan.

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👋 The Highly Objective Podcast is hosted by Dai Truong, who leads Cannabis Investment Banking at Arlington Capital Advisors.. Third-party information presented here and links to third-party content are for informational purposes only and are not intended as a recommendation, offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument, security or investment.  The information provided is not warranted as to completeness or accuracy and is subject to change without notice. Linking to third-party sites in no way implies an endorsement or affiliation of any kind between Arlington Capital Advisors, LLC, or its affiliates and any third party.  The information in this blog constitutes my own opinions (and any opinions posted by guest bloggers from time to time) and it should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Arlington Capital Advisors, LLC or any affiliate.